Myofunctional Therapy for Kids: What is It, and Signs Your Child Might Benefit
Big news from the Nurtured Pediatrics team – we are are now offering myofunctional therapy! Maybe you’ve heard of it before (from your pediatrician, your lactation consultant, or that parenting Reddit thread late at night), but aren’t quite sure what myofunctional therapy is…or if it’s something your child could benefit from.
Let’s get into it!
What Is Myofunctional Therapy?
Myofunctional therapy is a targeted approach to retraining the muscles of the mouth, tongue, lips, and face. It’s sometimes referred to as “oromyofunctional therapy”, or OMT. You can think of it like physical therapy for the muscles that support how your child eats, swallows, breathes, and speaks.
When these muscles aren’t quite working the way they should, the effects can show up in places you might not expect:
Feeding & swallowing
Speech & language development
Sleep quality
Jaw development & facial growth
Myofunctional therapy helps correct these issues at the root cause, rather than managing symptoms one at a time.
Signs It Might Be Time to Explore Myofunctional Therapy
Every child is different, and myofunctional therapy isn’t always the right fit for every care plan. But if you’re seeing a combination of the below signs, it might be time to have a conversation with your pediatrician.
Traditional myofucntional therapy is for children 4 years old and older, however our providers keep this training and wisdom in mind while treating our 0-3 population with sensorimotor approach.
Here are some sings and symptoms it may be time for myo-therapy:
Open-mouth posture at rest (mouth consistently hanging open)
Mouth breathing, especially during sleep
Snoring or restless sleep
Speech errors that don’t resolve with time
Difficulty chewing or transitioning to varied food textures
A food list that seems stuck or shrinking
A note about tongue tie release: If your child is a candidate for a frenectomy procedure, myofunctional therapy is often recommended both before and after to support healing and help the tongue learn new movement patterns.
What Does a Myofunctional Therapy Session Look Like?
Myofunctional therapy care can look a little different depending on the age and stage of your child.
After a thorough assessment, families are introduced to a structured program of targeted exercises, habit retraining (thumb sucking), and coordination work for swallowing and speech.
As always, we approach sessions from a caregiver coaching standpoint, offering you guidance and advice so you can continue to make progress between visits!
Don’t forget that myofunctional therapy works best as part of a whole-child approach, meaning in collaboration with your pediatrician, dentist, ENT, or lactation consultant (depending on what your child needs!).
How To Get Started
Our goal is to provide empowered care, carefully designed to support meaningful progress, however that looks to each unique child and family. We think of myofunctional therapy is another tool in our toolbox to provide real, lasting growth.
The mouth does a lot of work. Breathing, feeding, speaking, sleeping, and all of it runs through the same small set of muscles. When those muscles are supported, so much else follows. When they're not, the effects have a way of showing up everywhere.
If any of the signs above sound familiar, let’s start with a conversation. We’re happy to walk through whether this might be a good fit for your child, answer questions, and connect you with the right member of our team!
Reach out anytime at office@nurturedpeds.com or call/text 303-900-8710.