Swallowing disturbances associated with drooling in cerebral-palsied children

The oral stage of swallowing was studied in two groups of 10 cerebral-palsied (CP) children (one drooled and the other did not), and 10 normal children, aged six to 14 years. Small amounts of liquid (0.5 to 1mL) were placed under the tongue or behind the lower lip and intra-oral pressure was measured during the suction and propulsion stages. The CP children who drooled showed no abnormality in the propulsion of liquid towards the pharynx, but all showed abnormal suction of liquid onto the tongue. The difficulty seems to be associated with three types of disturbance: incomplete lip-closure during swallowing, low suction-pressure and prolonged delay between the suction and propelling stages.