A Parent’s Plain-Language Guide
If someone has mentioned myofunctional therapy for your child, your first reaction was probably: “What is that, exactly?” It’s not a term most parents have heard before, and it sounds more clinical and complicated than it actually is.
Here’s a plain-language explanation of what it is, what it involves day to day, and why more families are being pointed toward it earlier than ever before.
The Simplest Way to Think About It
Myofunctional therapy is an exercise-based treatment for the muscles of the mouth, tongue, face, and throat. Think of it the way you’d think of physiotherapy for a knee: targeted, specific exercises that retrain how a group of muscles functions and where they rest when they’re not being used.
In children, the focus is on four things: nasal breathing, proper tongue resting posture, lip seal, and a healthy swallowing pattern. When any of these are off, the effects reach further than most parents expect, into sleep quality, daytime behaviour, speech, dental development, and how the face and jaws grow.
The exercises themselves are simple. Most programs involve just five to ten minutes of practice per day, and they’re designed to be done at home between appointments.
What Problems Does It Address?
Myofunctional therapy is used for a range of issues that are more connected than they might appear:
- Mouth breathing and chronically open-mouth posture
- Tongue thrust, where the tongue pushes forward against the teeth during swallowing
- Low tongue posture, the tongue resting on the floor of the mouth rather than the palate
- Snoring and disturbed sleep in children
- Crowded or misaligned teeth related to narrow jaw development
- Certain speech and articulation patterns
- Oral habits like thumb sucking or prolonged pacifier use that have changed how the mouth is developing
What connects all of these is muscle function. When the muscles of the mouth and airway aren’t doing their job properly, everything they influence gets pulled off course, quietly, gradually, and often for years before anyone connects the dots.
What Treatment Actually Looks Like
It starts with a thorough assessment, looking at how the child breathes, where the tongue rests, how they swallow, what the jaw and palate look like, and whether any habits are contributing to the pattern. The goal is to see the whole picture, not just one piece of it.
From there, a personalized exercise program is built. Appointments are spaced every few weeks, with home exercises done in between. Most programs run for several months. Progress is gradual because the goal is to build new muscle habits, ones that become the default without the child having to think about them.
Children respond well to this kind of therapy. The exercises are introduced in a way that feels more like a game than a clinical treatment, and home practice fits naturally into routines that already exist, morning and evening, alongside brushing and bedtime.
Does It Work Alone, or Does It Need Support?
That depends on what’s driving the problem. Myofunctional therapy works best as part of a coordinated approach. If enlarged tonsils or adenoids are narrowing the airway, working with an ENT first makes the therapy significantly more effective.
If a tongue-tie is limiting tongue movement, a release is often recommended before exercises begin. If the jaw is narrow, an orthodontist may be involved alongside the myofunctional therapist.
The therapy isn’t a replacement for those steps; it’s what makes the results last. Without retraining the muscles, structural corrections alone tend not to hold.
When Is the Right Time to Look Into It?
The honest answer is: sooner than most families do. About 90% of midface growth is complete by age 12. The earlier a breathing or muscle pattern is caught, the more gently it can be guided, and the less intervention is needed down the road.
If your child snores, breathes through their mouth, has crowded teeth, struggles with focus or behaviour, or has been told they have a tongue thrust or a tongue tie, an assessment at The Pines Dental is a sensible next step. It’s pressure-free, kid-friendly, and gives you a clear picture of what’s actually going on.
Kirsten Trevisonn, RDH, is a Certified Orofacial Myologist and Registered Dental Hygienist at The Pines Dental in Welland. She offers free myofunctional consultations for children ages 3–12.
