PURPOSE: to describe the evolution of children with oral breathing, submitted to myofuncional therapy with emphasis on strengthening the muscles of the phonoarticulatoty organs and training of nasal breathing. METHODS: six children, 5 and 11-year old, who had performed screening at the Division of Phonoaudiological Therapy at Irmandade Santa Casa de Misericordia de São Paulo, along the year 2007, who demonstrated oral or oronasal breathing and signals and symptoms that are characteristic to this alteration, and had not been submitted to previous phonoaudiological treatment. The patients underwent 10 sessions of miofuntional therapy, focused on strengthening the muscles of the phonoarticulatory organs and training of nasal breathing. After the sessions, a reassessment was carried out and the evolution of the patients was compared qualitatively. RESULTS: four (66.66%) of the individuals were diagnosed with nasal obstruction. Three had been submitted to surgery previous to the phonoaudiological treatment. Two (33.33%) had a diagnosis of allergic rhinitis and were undergoing a treatment concomitantly to the sessions. All showed satisfactory improvement as for the worked issues. Three (50%) of the individuals had dentofacial deformities and made progress, though limited by the dental condition. All individuals showed improvement in the possibility of mouth closure and nasal breathing. CONCLUSION: ten sessions of miofuntional therapy, with emphasis on strengthening the muscles of the phonoarticulatory organs and training of nasal breathing were sufficient to obtain the improvement of the patients. The small number of the samples does not allow us to generalize the conclusion for others. We suggest to make further studies with larger populations and different age groups.
Oral Breathing; Myofuncional Therapy; Speech Therapy
