Looking beyond the teeth
At Little Roots, we know a healthy mouth is about more than healthy teeth. How your child breathes, sleeps, swallows, chews, and uses their tongue and lips can all be important pieces of their growth and development.
That’s why we look beyond cavities and cleanings. As part of your child’s care, we look at their oral structures, breathing patterns, tongue position and mobility, swallowing patterns, and oral habits to support healthy oral function, growth, and development.
Our role is to notice the pieces, ask the right questions, and help determine whether your child may benefit from additional evaluation, treatment, or collaboration with another healthcare provider.
Airway & oral function care at Little Roots
- Airway and Soft Tissue Screening
- Airway and Oral Function Evaluation
- Mouth Breathing
- Myofunctional Therapy
- Oral Habits
- Thumb & Finger Habits
- Pacifier Guidance
What we look for
Airway and oral function are part of the whole-child approach we take at Little Roots. At every routine dental visit, we screen for signs related to breathing, sleep, oral habits, tongue function, and growth and development.
Parents may also notice things at home, such as mouth breathing, snoring, restless sleep, difficulty keeping the lips closed at rest, unusual swallowing patterns, persistent oral habits, or concerns about tongue movement.
If something during your child’s screening or history deserves a closer look, we may recommend a separate, more comprehensive airway and oral function evaluation. This gives us dedicated time to take a deeper look at your child’s history, symptoms, oral structures, breathing patterns, and oral function.
Not every finding requires treatment. Our goal is to recognize concerns early, understand the whole picture, and help your family determine the most appropriate next step.
Oral function matters
The tongue, lips, cheeks, and surrounding muscles work together every day for breathing, chewing, swallowing, speaking, and maintaining healthy oral function.
When these patterns are not working as expected, some children may benefit from additional support. Depending on your child’s needs, that may include monitoring, changes in habits, myofunctional therapy, or evaluation by another healthcare professional.
At Little Roots, recommendations are individualized to the child in front of us rather than based on a single finding.
Myofunctional therapy
Myofunctional therapy uses individualized exercises and strategies to support healthy function of the tongue, lips, and muscles of the mouth and face.
When appropriate, therapy may focus on skills such as tongue resting position, lip closure, nasal breathing patterns, chewing, or swallowing. The goals and exercises are tailored to your child’s age, development, needs, and the underlying reason therapy is being considered.
Myofunctional therapy is not right for every child. We first evaluate your child’s oral structures and function, then discuss whether therapy, monitoring, referral, or another approach makes the most sense.
Care is collaborative
Airway health can involve more than dentistry. When we identify something that would benefit from additional evaluation, we believe in working together.
Depending on your child’s needs, that may include collaboration with their pediatrician, ENT, allergist, sleep medicine physician, speech-language pathologist, orthodontist, lactation professional, or other members of their healthcare team.
Our goal is not to make every diagnosis or provide every treatment within our office. It is to recognize what we see, understand how it may relate to your child’s oral health and function, and help your family find the appropriate next step.
Where airway and oral function meet the rest of our care
Personalize. Prevent. Preserve. These principles guide our approach to airway and oral function care, too.
We personalize our evaluation to your child’s development and individual needs, identify concerns early when possible, and recommend thoughtful care that supports healthy oral function as your child grows.
At Little Roots, looking at the whole child helps us better care for the smile in front of us.
This page describes clinical care in general terms and is written for parents. It is not advice about your individual child.
