All About Myofunctional Therapy

SimonSays: is a specialized myofunctional therapy certification program tailored for SLPs, led by Jennifer Simon Triandafilou that was created using evidenced based research. It focuses on assessment and management of orofacial myofunctional disorders (OMDs) such as tongue thrust, open mouth posture, oral habits like thumb sucking, and others.

Myofunctional therapy is a non-invasive therapeutic approach that treats the root cause of many issues that affect breathing, speech, swallowing, sleep, dentition, oral health, and overall orofacial function—not just the symptoms.

If you or your child are experiencing one or several of the following it may be time to consider myofunctional therapy: 

-sleep disordered breathing

-temporomandibular joint (TMJ) pain or dysfunction (TMD) 

-orthodontic relapse

-tongue thrust swallow

-persistent speech sound errors

-frontal or lateral lisp 

-feeding difficulties and/or messy eating 

-mouth breathing

-thumb sucking

-narrow/high arched upper palate

We have compiled a list of some resources and research articles regarding orofacial myofunctional disorders and therapy. 

Evaluating the Impact of Myofunctional Therapy on Orthodontic Treatment Outcomes: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39346177/

A case study on myofunctional therapy and malocclusions created by oral habits: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36968798/

Impact of Oral Myofunctional Therapy on Orofacial Myofunctional Status and Tongue Strength in Patients with Tongue Thrust: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33113529/

Sleep habits and orofacial myofunctional self-assessment of children at risk for sleep breathing disorders: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38126423/

The efficacy of orofacial myofunctional therapy in oral dysphagia accompanying temporomandibular dysfunction: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37343031/

If you have any questions or would like to schedule an appointment, please don't hesitate to contact us. We are always happy to help and look forward to hearing from you