Oral Myofunctional and Articulation Disorders in Children with Malocclusions: A Systematic Review

Relationships between malocclusion and orofacial myofunctional disorders (OMD), as well as malocclusions and articulation disorders (AD) have been described, though the exact relationships remain unclear. Given the high prevalence of these disorders in children, more clarity is needed.

The purpose of this study was to determine the association between OMD (specifically, bruxism, deviate swallowing, caudal resting tongue posture, and biting habits), AD, and malocclusions in children and adolescents aged between 3 and 18 years. To conduct a systematic review, 4 databases were searched (MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science, and Scopus). The identified articles were screened for the eligibility criteria. Data were extracted from the selected articles and quality assessment was performed using the tool of Munn et al. [Int J Health Policy Manag. 2014;3:123-81] in consensus. Using the search strategy, the authors identified 2,652 articles after the removal of duplicates. After reviewing the eligibility criteria, 17 articles were included in this study. One of the included articles was deemed to have an unclear risk of bias, whereas all other articles were considered to have a low risk of bias. The articles showed a relationship between anterior open bite and apico-alveolar articulatory distortions, as well as between anterior open bite and deviate swallowing. For the biting habits, bruxism, and low tongue position no clear conclusions could be drawn. Key Messages: The current review suggests a link between specific types of malocclusion and OMD and AD. However, more high-quality evidence (level 1 and level 2, Oxford Levels of Evidence) is needed to clarify the cooccurrence of other OMD, AD, and malocclusions.