Helping teeth alignment and jaw development
Orofacial Myology is a therapy that studies the structure, arrangement and the actions of the muscles of the face, jaw, tongue and lips. These muscles control functions such as chewing, swallowing and speech, and also have an effect on teeth alignment and jaw development.
Specialised therapy (known as Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy or OMT) are personalised exercises, which can retrain your muscles to work the way the body was designed to work, while resting and functioning correctly throughout the day.
It’s like personal training for your face and its muscles.
Orofacial Myology can help
Orofacial myology can help with a variety of conditions. These include:
Speech sounds
Thumb/finger/lip sucking or nail biting
Oral habits such as hair, lip and clothes sucking
Messy/poor feeding and chewing habits
Mouth breathing or open mouth posture
Problems with tongue movement or resting position
Tongue or lip ties
Dental alignment and bite problems
Damage to their teeth including tooth wear
Nasal airway problems
What does the treatment involve?
Our philosophy is to take a team approach.
We work closely with Doctors, Speech Pathologists, Occupational Therapists, Orthodontists, Ear Nose and Throat Specialists and Oral Maxillo-facial Specialists to help our patients achieve their goals.
A customised program for your child.
After an initial consultation, we will create a program that’s customised to your child and their specific issues. We’ll explain the program and work with you and your child to explain the exercises and treatments.
Common FAQs
Exercises for the muscles of the mouth, tongue, jaw, face (it’s like an oral gym!). Ideally do the exercises 2-3 times a day to have the maximum training.
Some do, some don’t. The longer the habit persists, the more negative impact to dental and oral development.
Do it with them, don’t make it like a chore, be excited and motivated yourself, make it fun, make it a race and see who can do better or longer duration. Keep children interested and motivated with suitable rewards.
Learn good oral postural habits for life, breathing from the nose is how we are meant to breathe. Tongue resting against the root of the mouth develops our jaws evenly. Lips closed keep germs away, and keep saliva in the mouth to keep our teeth and gums healthy.