What is an OMD?
An orofacial myofunctional disorder is an imbalance of the mouth, tongue, lips and facial muscles used for proper resting posture and swallowing. The most common OMD is "tongue thrust" but other OMDs include habit patterns such as thumbsucking, open mouth resting posture, and chewing/swallowing difficulties.
 
What Causes an OMD?
OMDs can occur from one or more of the following factors:
- Prolonged oral habits like pacifier use, thumbsucking, or finger sucking
- Prolonged bottle use
- Chronic airway obstruction due to allergies, enlarged tonsils or adenoids
- Tongue ties
- Family heredity
- Physical/Developmental anomalies
 
Therapy can help with...
- Thumb and finger habits
- Open mouth posturing
- Tongue thrust swallow
- Articulation (speech) disorders
- Mouth Breathing
- Orthodontic Relapse/ Developing Proper Occlusion
- Malocclusion
- Under developed oral-facial muscles
- Sleep Disordered Breathing/Obstructive Sleep Apnea
- TMJD symptoms
- Proper head and facial development
- Thumbsucking/noxious habit elimination
 
Why is therapy necessary?
Proper posturing and relationships between the tongue and lips is necessary for normal development. Without this, it can affect:
- Normal dental eruption and alignment
- Orthodontic results
- Normal function of the TMJ (temporomandibular joint)
- The shape of/normal growth and development of the face and mouth
- Posturing problems with the head and neck
- Speech production/sound errors
- Sleep patterns
 
*Jennie and Kim are the only Speech-Language Pathologists in the greater Milwaukee area that are trained to treat Orofacial Myofunctional Disorders. Jennie is the only certified orofacial myologist (COM) in Milwaukee.