A recent controlled study at Ghent University, in Belgium (Van Lierde KM, et al., Oral Dis. 2015 May;21(4):483-92. doi: 10.1111/odi.12307) has documented articulation and oromyofunctional behavior in children seeking orthodontic treatment. As well, relations between malocclusions, articulation, and oromyofunctional behavior were studied.
The study included 56 children seeking orthodontic treatment. The control group, consisting of 54 subjects matched for age and gender, did not undergo orthodontic intervention. To determine the impact of the occlusion on speech, the Oral Health Impact Profile was used. Speech characteristics, intelligibility and several lip and tongue functions were analyzed using consensus evaluations.
A significant impact of the occlusion on speech and more articulation disorders for/s,n,l,t/were found in the subjects seeking orthodontic treatment. Several other phenomena were seen more often in this group, namely more impaired lip positioning during swallowing, impaired tongue function at rest, mouth breathing, open mouth posture, lip sucking/biting, anterior tongue position at rest, and tongue thrust. Moreover, all children with a tongue thrust showed an anterior tongue position at rest.
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