Relationship of Hand and Mouth in Development

Movement in the hand and mouth are connected developmentally.
Below are just a couple of the ways:

Many primitive reflexes help a baby use hands to
feed and later learn to talk. One of these early reflexes is Babkin Palmomental where when the babies palm is touched or stretched and the baby’s mouth opens. You will see this in elementary
classes when children are raising an open hand and some mouths are usually hanging open. Hand to Mouth is another developmental reflex related to the one above. If something is pressed into the palm of a toddler, it is raised to the opened mouth.

In our course you may remember that the motor
areas of the mouth and hand are very close together in the Upper Brain. Some people have trouble speaking if they can’t move their hands. Also movement of the hands activates the speech centers of the brain in the parietal lobes. Research that uncovered this relationship was explored by Shigeru Obayashi and his team in 2001.
If anyone doubts the above have them open their mouths and
hands widely and after 5 seconds tightly fist the hands and tightly purse the mouth for 5 seconds. Repeat 3 or 4 times. Now have them reverse the action. Open the mouth and clench the fist and open the hand and purse the mouth. This second pattern goes against the pattern and is usually harder to accomplish.
Of course later in life, most people can use the upper brain
of the cortex to override the lower automatic systems used in development. One
will still see the hand mouth relationship when showing an emotional reaction,
such as, surprise where both hands and mouth are open and anger where hands and mouths are clenched.
The relationship between the mouth and hand is very important in early development. So in atypical development the motor relationship between hand and mouth can be used to restore disrupted or traumatized development.