From frustrations to revelations

ASHA certified Speech-language pathologists who have completed advanced clinical training in Orofacial Myology are referred to as Orofacial Myologists. In 2013, Maureen Cooney received her COM through the International Association of Orofacial Myology (IAOM) and was COM Number: 187; however, as the current IAOM Board of Directors has deteriorated the historical high standards, Maureen as chosen to walk away from the organization she previously had been Convention Chair in 2018 and Education Chair of from 2018-2020 and has sadly given up her COM. Trestle founder Maureen Cooney is one of Chicagoland’s most experienced providers in this area. In addition, several other Trestle therapists have completed advanced OM training under Mary Billings, Dianah Davidson, Kristie Gatto, Amanda Chastain, some of the most accomplished OMs internationally.

Orofacial Myofunctional Disorders (OMDs) include abnormal breathing and oral development, which affect how you breathe, sleep, eat and speak. An OMD can be the cause of speech disorders, like feeding and swallowing issues, speech disturbances like lisps, and voice disorders. Language delays, cognitive disorders, and behavioral concerns are also associated with OMDs due to poor sleep quality and atypical breathing related to reduced attention and the ability to participate fully in everyday life.

Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy (OMT) uses neuromuscular re-education, and specific techniques to retrain breathing, oral motor patterns, and swallowing. When we can identify the causes relating to the dysfunction and eliminate compensations, our patients report greater outcomes and overall improvements in their quality of life.

OMT can assist in developing a healthy orofacial muscle matrix by normalizing rest postures of the tongue, lips, and jaw, retraining nasal breathing, supporting diaphragm activation, using neuromuscular re-education to strengthen and balance orofacial muscles, and correct atypical chewing and swallowing patterns.

Noxious habits of the mouth, including thumb sucking, nail biting, and extensive bottle use can change the way the palate is formed and how the teeth come together. When the mouth is developing, the palate is very soft and can be manipulated via pressure from the thumb, pacifiers, bottle, or sippy cup, causing the palate to become very high and narrow, reducing the oral volume in the mouth. When there is not enough room in the mouth for the tongue, the tongue’s rest posture and motor patterns can also become altered, further exacerbating the negative oral structure changes and function during breathing, speech, feeding, and swallowing.

The tongue is not only a muscle but also an organ. The tongue plays a major role in breathing, chewing, swallowing, and speech. To fully understand what a tongue-tie means, you have to understand the normal range of motion of the tongue and why the tongue needs to be free to move to support healthy oral function. The tongue must be free from the tip, as well as the back to with full range of motion, to safely collect food, swallow, and make clear speech sounds without compensatory movements that can over time lead to facial asymmetry, orofacial pain, and Temporomandibular Disorders (TMD).

During breast or bottle feeding, the tongue has to have full posterior (back) elevation and contact with the soft palate around the nipple in order to get a complete seal to express the milk, like a vacuum, and swallow correctly. If the tissue is tight under the tongue, feeding and swallowing will be less efficient and may be a negative experience, as the baby will often develop an atypical motor pattern through using their jaw to chew the milk out of the nipple as opposed to sucking the milk out. When this occurs, babies usually fatigue early or feel as if they are choking due to poor oral control, and mothers can end up with nipple damage and pain.

During conversational speech, the back sides of the tongue has to stabilize along the upper molar region so the tongue can make its superfine motor movements going from sound to sound in connected speech at a very fast rate. If the tongue cannot correctly anchor from the back, the movements will be compromised and speech can sound distorted.

In conclusion, there’s no such thing as a mild tongue-tie. The severity should be determined by how severe the symptoms are and if the functions are compromised. At Trestle, we are experts at retraining the tongue to restore normal function without compensation.

The tongue is often referred to as an antagonist, as it is a very strong muscle capable of causing teeth to shift and bites to change if it puts too much pressure on the teeth. Tongue thrusts can influence negative changes to the oral cavity and dentition, creating malocclusion and high, narrow palates. The goal of orthodontics is to correct the alignment of the teeth, but if your child has a tongue thrust, the long-term oral stability can become compromised if the tongue thrust is not eliminated prior to finishing orthodontics.

Mouth breathing and hyperventilation are often associated with increased symptoms of allergies, asthma, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, reflux, etc. OMT can support the reduction of symptoms and reduced need for medication when breathing and swallowing patterns are improved, the orofacial complex is balanced, and oral habits are eliminated.

Through establishing lip closure and nasal breathing your patients can have fewer symptoms and may need less medication if their breathing and OMDs are targeted.

Did you know that mouth breathing and other atypical oral muscular patterns are associated with dental caries (cavities), periodontal disease (gum disease), halitosis (bad breath), and atypical chewing patterns associated with poor diet? Retraining nasal breathing and oral rest posture may lead to healthier mouths with less risk of dental disease, improve oral hygiene, develop better smiles, maintain dental stability, and improve nutrition and digestion. OMT can teach correct chewing so you can safely and efficiently chew a variety of hard and chewy healthy solids.

Atypical chewing patterns are often associated with poor nutrition and diet. OMT can support your nutritional needs by using neuromuscular re-education to improve chewing skills. This helps you to safely and efficiently chew a variety of hard whole foods (nuts, raw vegetables, meats) and reduce intake of soft processed foods and smoothies. By retraining how to swallow and reducing air intake, reflux can be better managed. And digestion can also improve through OMT, as correct chewing skills can increase the production of digestive enzymes.

OMT can support stable, long-term orthodontic results and decrease the risk of dental relapse through normalizing the rest posture of the tongue, lips, and teeth and by removing atypical muscular forces and patterns of the tongue. OMT can also reduce the overall time in fixed appliances by removing atypical muscular forces and patterns of the tongue.

Ninety percent of TMD is muscle-based and related to incorrect oral muscle patterns. OMT retrains the patient to use their orofacial muscles, which support breathing, speech, chewing, and swallowing without compensation. Because the orofacial muscles are all interconnected, when there are abusive oral habits, atypical rest postures of the mouth, or compensatory patterns with those muscles, they could put strain on other smaller muscles or the TMJ, causing pain, reduced range of motion, and dysfunction. Normalizing the oral rest postures and motor patterns could help reduce tension and aggressive forces on the jaw joint and other muscles, establishing harmony and balance.

OMT can be another intervention to support the treatment of SDB, as OMT retrains and normalizes the muscles of the orofacial complex to improve rest postures, retrain nasal breathing, stabilize the dental freeway space (vertical dimension of the mouth), and optimize functional skills to improve breathing, reduce tension, and decrease symptoms that can exacerbate SDB. OMT can also reinforce compliance with CPAP and oral appliances.