The oral behavior screener: a brief caregiver-completed measure of oral behaviors.

Introduction: To date, there are no caregiver-reported screening measures of oral behaviors related to feeding. The goal of this study was to develop such a measure.

Method: Caregivers of 803 children referred to a feeding clinic and 188 comparison children reported their children's frequency of nine oral behaviors. These data were used to develop an Oral Behavior Screener (OBS). Both the psychometrics of the OBS and the relations between the OBS and child demographics were examined.

Results: As expected, the clinical sample demonstrated more deficits in oral behaviors than the comparison sample. We also found special needs status and age were linked to the OBS summary score.

Discussion: The OBS is a brief screener that can be used by clinicians to examine the need for further assessment, possible targets for intervention, oral behaviors often associated with feeding problems.