The Hidden Impact of Mouth Breathing on Pediatric Speech, Feeding, and Therapy Outcomes

Mouth breathing affects up to 50% of children and islinked to differences in speech development, inefficient chewing and swallowing, altered oral muscle function, and sleep-related behavioral challenges. Yet clinicians often treat speech and feeding in isolation, overlooking how breathing patterns may drive these issues. When missed, this can lead to stalled progress, inefficient intervention, and ongoing functional limitations. Recognizing mouth breathing as a contributing factor can improve outcomes and guide appropriate referrals. If you've ever had children on your caseload seem "stuck" despite well-planned therapy, mouth breathing may be the missing piece.

This course equips clinicians with practical, immediatelyapplicable evidence-informed strategies to screen, identify,and refer mouth-breathing children in pediatric speech and feeding contexts. Through targeted screening tools, clinicalreasoning, and case-based learning, participants will learn to recognize key signs, understand functional impacts, andimplement appropriate next steps, including referrals. By the end of this course, participants will be able to integrate breathing-focused screening into everyday practice, refine intervention planning through informed decision-making, and support improved functional outcomes in speech, feeding, swallowing, behavioral and cognitive domains across a variety of practice settings.

The content of this program is germane to children, students and clients ages 4-18 years old.

Target Audience: Speech-Language Pathologists

Delivery Format: Synchronous, Live interactive webinar to be attended online on a specific date/time

Highlights

• Recognize the red flags of mouth breathing in children
• Gain an understanding of how mouth breathing can influence speech production, feeding patterns, cognition, and behavior in the children on your caseload
• Immediately integrate evidence-informed screening for mouth breathing into pediatric speech and feeding assessments and intervention sessions across clinical settings
• Identify appropriate interdisciplinary referral partners when recognizing signs and symptoms of mouth breathing in children