Here at Gro we see A LOT of kids and adults for orofacial myology assessment and therapy but what exactly does that mean? Just to confuse everyone further, there are multiple terms for orofacial myology, which all mean the same thing another popular term is orofacial myofunctional therapy.
First off, the short definition of an orofacial myology disorder (OMD) is “the study and treatment of the oral and facial muscles as they relate to speech, dentition, chewing/bolus collection, swallowing, and overall mental and physical health.” (Sandra R. Holtzman)
At Gro, we are all speech language pathologists trained in orofacial myology assessment and therapy. That means when we see a child or adult for speech, articulation, feeding, language or voice therapy we are also looking at them through our “myo” eyes. During an assessment we are looking at how the tongue, oral and facial muscles and bones are affecting speech, feeding, swallowing, breathing and sleep.
A big part of our assessment is determining if there is a “tongue tie” but actually we are looking to see if where your tongue is attached on the floor of your mouth is affecting any speech sounds or intelligibility (the ability for others to understand you), your ability to nasal breathe, how your chewing and preparing the food in your mouth, your tongue position when swallowing and your quality of sleep. Over the next few blog posts we will dive deeper into how your tongue, oral and facial muscles affect each of these areas.
It’s all about FUNCTION!! We are always looking at how function is impacted. If we see a Grade 4 tongue restriction (i.e. most severe) but there is no functional implication, then we will not recommend a release! To be honest this rarely occurs but it is important to remember that function drives our clinical decision making.
Orofacial myology therapy (OMT) is where we really get to work. We can release the tongue but that’s only going to fix a small portion of the “problem,” you’ve lived however many years with your tongue resting on the floor of your mouth and with limited range of motion. OMT is like physical therapy for your tongue, its job is to teach new habits. These include teaching correct tongue resting position (more to come on this!), strengthening all 8 tongue muscles to easily be able to demonstrate lingual-mandibular differentiation (which is the fancy term for moving your tongue separately from your jaw), chewing and preparing your food so that it’s safe to swallow (which can reduce reflux and aspiration risks!), correct tongue position when swallowing foods and drinks and easily producing sounds that may be affected by the tongue’s limited range of motion.
Be prepared because it’s a lot of work! Because of the nature of OMT we typically look for children to be at least 5-6 years old and able to follow directions because it is a lot of active exercises to complete. We assign weekly homework that consists of exercises that are to be completed daily and when the patient is motivated and on top of it, therapy can be done in 6-12 months but benefits will last a lifetime!
What if your child is younger and you are noticing OMD signs or symptoms?! Stay tuned on more information about this and how this falls into the oral motor/feeding realm!
