Welcome to NOMAS^® International!

Here you will find an exciting community for neonatal and pediatric feeding professionals. Among the resources available on this site are a lively bulletin board for discussion of feeding issues; online training courses for occupational therapists, speech pathologists and nurses that may be taken for CEU credits from AOTA, ASHA and the California Board of Registered Nursing; information about how to become a licensed NOMAS^® practitioner and also information for institutions about how to license the NOMAS protocol and incorporate it into neonatal and pediatric practices.

Marjorie Meyer Palmer MA, CCC-SLP

The NOMAS (Neonatal Oral-Motor Assesment Scale) was developed in 1983 by Marjorie Meyer Palmer MA, CCC-SLP and has since become a reliable tool for the evaluation of neonatal sucking patterns in pre-term and term infants. The NOMAS provides a comprehensive description of the infant's feeding patterns and enables the examiner to identify normal oral-motor patterns and to differentiate disorganized from dysfunctional patterns. The NOMAS is used for pre and post-test measurements to determine treatment effectiveness; to record developmental and changing patterns; and to confirm oral-motor dysfunction or disorganization in the poor feeder. It is important to accurately identify the infant's feeding pattern so that appropriate treatment may be prescribed. Performance on the NOMAS is predictive of developmental outcome at 24 months of age.