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Exercise for good looking faces!
Beautiful faces and captivating smiles are
shaped by a balanced activity
of the muscles responsible for facial expression,
swallowing and mastication.

Nasal breathing with lips sealed
Proper tongue and lip posture at rest and in speech
Correct chewing
Correct swallowing

Characterise faces of beautiful and healthy people.
Habits detrimental to beautiful and healthy faces are:

Mouth breathing
Prolonged use of pacifiers
Thumb and finger sucking
Cheek and lip biting
Finger nail biting
Tongue sucking
Noisy chewing,smacking,gulping food
Messy eating
Clenching and grinding teeth

Aberrant oral and facial muscle activity and posture at rest associated with these detrimental habits impact on development of dental arches and contribute to bad bites, thus negatively influencing facial aesthetics and function. 

Authorities suggest that OMD (oral myofunctional disorders) may be directly caused by the above mentioned habits or be a result of :

Restricted nasal airway due to obstruction from enlarged tonsils and adenoids and/or allergies
Structural or physiological abnormalities such as tongue tie (ankyloglossia )or abnormally large tongue (macro glossia)
Neurological or developmental problems

Orofacial myology is motivational as well as muscle training therapy. It is aimed to normalise harmful habits and to reinforce techniques of positive behaviour.

Oral myofunctional training involves individualised regimen of exercises to re-pattern oral and facial muscle activity.

These exercises aim to establish correct posture of the tongue and of the lips at rest and to help development of correct and consistent chewing, swallowing and breathing patterns.

Researchers highlighted that 81% of the subjects with OMD (oral myofunctional disorders) displayed speech problems as well.

Most common speech error was related to /S /sound, others are/z/,/sh/,/ch/,/j/,/d/,/t/,/n/,/l/and/r/.

It is very difficult to rectify speech problems with speech pathology training only in cases where they co-exist with OMD.Combined therapy approach is recommended in these cases.

At iSmile Studio we routinely screen for OMD.
We offer our clients individualised oralmyology training programs.
But most of all we love the challenge of helping your child to quit thumb sucking.