Influence of Three Feedback Conditions on Performing a Swallow Motor Pattern in Healthy Adults

Motor learning is the process involved in acquiring and refining motor skills, which relies on accurate practice and feedback. The purpose of the current investigation was to examine the influence of three types of feedback on successfully performing a swallow motor pattern of a common swallowing intervention known as the Mendelsohn maneuver (MM).

One hundred twenty healthy participants were randomized to one of three feedback conditions: (1) visual and verbal feedback (VVF), (2) verbal feedback only (VF), and (3) intrinsic feedback (IF). Participants were asked to perform a swallow motor pattern associated with the MM. Data were collected using surface electromyography.

Percentages of participants who performed the pattern successfully and the time required to complete three successful swallowing patterns were significantly different by the feedback condition. The feedback conditions influenced the performance of the MM swallow motor pattern. One hundred percent of the participants randomized to the VVF condition performed the motor pattern successfully and performed three consecutive successful trails in a shorter time period (211 s; χ2 (2) = 95.95, p < 0.001) when compared to the VF condition (74% performed in 505 s) and the IF condition (18% performed in 826 s; χ2 (2) = 95.96, p < 0.001). However, considering the participants who met the performance criteria, the number of repetition attempts required to correctly produce the MM pattern did not differ significantly between the three feedback conditions (χ2 (2) = 14.86, p = 0.81).

Visual and verbal feedback improves the performance of the MM and decreases the time to perform three successful MM swallowing patterns in healthy adults.