A Review of Assessment Tools for Oral Feeding in Term and Preterm Infants

Background and purpose: Problems in oral feeding are common in infants, especially in preterm infants. Therefore, assessment of infants feeding could be of great help in making appropriate diagnosis for rehabilitation of swallowing. Therefore, comprehensive and accurate assessment tools are needed. The aim of this study was to review assessment tools used for infants oral feeding. Materials and methods: Electronic databases including Google scholar, Pubmed, Scopus, Science Direct, and Medline were searched using the following keywords: Infant OR Preterm infant OR Premature infant, Evaluation or Assessment tool, Dysphagia OR Oral motor feeding or Swallowing or Feeding behavior. Articles published between 2000 and 2018 were reviewed and information including the manufacturer's name and country, purpose of the test, population, age, feeding method, examiner, psychometric properties, scoring criteria, and number of test items was collected. Results: In studies reviewed, 14 tools were used. Among the tools, two were used for assessment of bottle and breast feeding, 10 evaluated only breast feeding and only one tool was used for bottle feeding. There was also one tool that assessed the pre-feeding skills. Conclusion: Speech therapists usually use the tools that could accurately evaluate breast feeding or bottle feeding at a shorter time. Current review suggests Early Feeding Skills Assessment (EFS) and Neonatal Oral-motor Assessment scale (NOMAS) as the tools that have the features desired, and also have suitable psychometric properties and could be used in this group of infants.