BaByVFSSImP© A Novel Measurement Tool for Videofluoroscopic Assessment of Swallowing Impairment in Bottle-Fed Babies: Establishing a Standard.
Bonnie Martin-Harris, Kathryn A Carson, Jeanne M Pinto and 1 others
PMID 30955137WHAT IT FOUND
A new scoring system for baby swallow studies grouped 21 components into five domains.
Scores for airway closure and aspiration strongly matched how much liquid entered the airway. These physiology scores also aligned with clinicians' feeding recommendations, though not with caregiver stress.
Key findings
01The assessment tool successfully grouped 21 swallowing components into five functional domains, with one component (lip closure) failing to load and another (oral residue) excluded due to missing data.
02Domain scores for Airway Invasion/Laryngeal Closure and Aspiration showed strong positive correlations with the Penetration-Aspiration Scale (PASmax), while Pharyngeal Transport and Clearance showed a modest relationship.
03Clinically modest correlations were found between domain scores for Aspiration and Pharyngeal Transport/Clearance and the feeding recommendations made by examining clinicians.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only thin liquids were analyzed; results may differ for thicker consistencies. The 'Oral Residue' component was dropped because it was too difficult to see in many videos due to the nipple's position, limiting the tool's ability to assess oral phase issues comprehensively. The study population was heterogeneous, so specific impairment profiles may vary by diagnosis (e.g., cardiac vs. pulmonary). No severity cut-points were established, so the tool cannot yet classify patients into mild/moderate/severe groups. The tool did not correlate with caregiver burden, suggesting it may miss the broader impact of feeding difficulties on families.
Declared interests
The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health (N.I.H., Extramural). No specific commercial conflicts of interest for the authors are detailed in the provided text, though the tool name includes a copyright symbol.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume this tool is ready for immediate clinical use to predict outcomes or caregiver stress. It currently lacks severity cut-points, failed to correlate with caregiver burden, and was validated only on thin liquids. Furthermore, the inability to reliably score oral residue means it may under-report oral phase impairments.