Feeding development in healthy infants: A comparative framework for children with Spinal Muscular Atrophy - The...

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Swallowing and Feeding
• Neuromuscular Disorders
• Clinical Diagnostics

Background:

• Limited normative data exists for swallowing parameters in healthy children, crucial for diagnosing conditions like Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA).
• Early detection of swallowing dysfunction in SMA is vital, even with disease-modifying therapies, necessitating reliable assessment tools.

Purpose of the Study:

• To generate normative data for the Dysphagia in Spinal Muscular Atrophy (DySMA) tool in a healthy infant population.
• To establish a benchmark for comparing swallowing and feeding abilities in infants with and without SMA.

Main Methods:

• Recruitment of healthy infants and toddlers aged 0-24 months, stratified into seven age groups.
• Assessment using the DySMA protocol by two certified speech-language pathologists.
• Descriptive statistical analysis and inter-rater reliability testing (ICC).

Main Results:

• 92 healthy children were analyzed, with DySMA scores ranging from 21 to 35.
• Excellent inter-rater reliability (ICC = .936) was demonstrated for the DySMA tool.
• Physiological development categories showed significant age-dependent changes, unlike pathology categories.

Conclusions:

• The DySMA tool accurately reflects physiological feeding development in infants and toddlers.
• Higher DySMA scores correlate with broader skill sets, while lower scores indicate limitations.
• This normative data enables the identification of deviations from typical development in children with SMA.