Starting a new private practice and looking for a good oral mechanism exam checklist

I am starting a new private practice and I’m looking for a good oral mechanism exam checklist. Do you have one or know of a place that would have one? Thanks, S

Hi S, Congratulations on starting up a practice.  Being that I have focused on orofacial myology for so many years, my eval is complicated and requires too much explanation for someone to use without having attended my course.  It also will depend upon what type of patient you are seeing.  For example, if I were seeing a young child with a language disorder, I wouldn’t delve as deeply as I would for an artic case since I know that almost all artic cases have some structural connection.  For an adult stutterer or voice case, I’d look at other things, etc.  If you will be seeing mainly one type of patient/client, and if you’d like some guidance with it, I’ll try to give you some input.  One thing for sure, I check everyone for tongue tie or even slightly restricted lingual frena.  I can’t believe how many calls I get from those I’ve trained, telling me that they have found several on their caseloads who have restricted lingual frena; some had been in therapy elsewhere for years without progressing; yet their restricted frenum was overlooked. Whether they nose breathe or mouth breathe is critical.  If they mouth breathe, enlarged tonsils/adenoids, severe allergies, etc. must be ruled out prior to therapy. You might also take a look at the labial frenum, under the upper lip since it sometimes is tight or short and doesn’t let the lips close easily enough to produce bilabials and certain vowels and diphthong sounds. If they are 4 years or older, they should be able to separate the tongue and mandible and lips during movements such as: side to side with tongue, in and out with tongue, up to “spot” on alveolar ridge and down numerous times. These are but a handful of the involved exam I give/teach, and hopefully they are some areas that might help you out since others sometimes miss these areas. Let me know if you have more questions, Sandra