College
College of Health Professions
Date of Last Revision
2023-05-08 14:13:20
Major
Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology
Honors Course
7700:496
Number of Credits
3
Degree Name
Bachelor of Science
Date of Expected Graduation
Spring 2023
Abstract
Addressing difficulties with swallowing is a small, yet critical portion of a speech-language pathologist’s role. Infants often experience challenges associated with swallowing safely, yet the ability of SLPs to prescribe effective interventions is limited by the lack of knowledge on how anatomy and physiology interact to drive these challenges. The goal of my Honors Research Project is to address this lack of knowledge by determining how the infant pig tongue moves during feeding from a bottle versus drinking from a bowl, as well as how the muscles controlling the tongue differ in these behaviors. I used infant pigs for this project, since they have the same swallowing mechanisms as human infants. Video data was processed by digitally tracking radio-opaque beads from videos in 3-D in XMALab. Electromyographic data, processed using an established workflow, was utilized to determine muscle activity. By combining these two metrics, I contributed to our understanding of how infants transition to solid foods, providing critical insight on the physiology of this change in feeding. These results will be useful in determining what anatomical and physiological changes occur to better inform clinical practice in helping infants with feeding difficulties.
This content of this research article was submitted to the Journal of Integrated and Comparative Biology, awaiting review.
Research Sponsor
Dr. Angela Reif
First Reader
Dr. Christopher Mayerl
Second Reader
Dr. Rebecca Z German
Honors Faculty Advisor
Dr. James Steiger
Proprietary and/or Confidential Information
No
Recommended Citation
Steer, Kendall, "The Impact of Bowl Feeding on Infant Muscle Activity and Kinematics - An Executive Summary" (2023). Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects. 1638.
https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/honors_research_projects/1638