Mouth breathing in preschool children

Early recognition of mouth breathing (MB) is essential to prevent negative impact on myofunctional and morphological orofacial development, but also to avoid behavioural and learning disabilities. Prevention is now considered as a key factor in the clinical field; still research needs to put more effort into focusing on preschool children, as it is known that MB decreases in time.
The department of SLP at the University of Liege, Belgium, is following fifty children from 3 to 5 years old to identify the factors that are influencing orofacial myofunctional development and their eventual link with speech development. This presentation will focus on the first part of this study, which includes association of MB reported by parents with information such as premature birth, breast feeding, past and current non-nutritive sucking, past and current ear and throat infections, sleep quality and picky eating problems.

Objectives are :
1. Quickly review the literature about MB in young children
2. Describe early screening techniques according to our study
3. Describe early (0 to 6 years old) intervention for an optimal craniofacial growth