‘Tongue sucking’ during the evening

Hi Sandra– I have a quick question for you, I just evaluated a patient who presents with ‘tongue sucking’ during the evening. Mom has attempted to stop this using different pillows, smells (bleach, etc.), due to the increase of ‘sucking patterns’ that occur at nighttime when she is comforted.  We discussed some auto-suggestion theories, however, I am uncertain how to direct her or what more to tell her. I was uncertain if this is a behavior that you see typically and could give me some direction! Thanks so much! So happy to hear how your business is growing and growing and growing!! Best Wishes– T

You asked about the child who sucks her tongue in the evenings.  I don’t know if you have the Myo Manual or not; if so, the exercises I’ll be referring to are explained in it, but not in relation to tongue sucking. How old is the child?  Does she want to quit?  These are biggies…If she’s 4, I would go about it differently than if she’s 6 or 7, for example.  If she is anxious to quit and has good reasons to do so, that calls for a different approach than if she does not want to quit, for example. In brief, here is what I would do, but you won’t necessarily be able to do all of it since it takes a lot more explanation and time to explain it…

• Show pictures or video, etc. of damage that can occur from a noxious oral habit
• Get her okay to move forward
• Although I almost never go into tongue to spot training early in the program, in this case it is necessary to do so; however,
• I make sure they pass or maximize the proficiency exam #1 of basic lingual skills first..then I would give brief tongue to spot training
• Then I would give the autosuggestion flashdrive in the Myo Manual; again, it is usually used at the end of therapy, but in this case, I use it early on, probably twice daily, one of them being at bed time. 

This is a brief rundown of how I handle it and teach it, but unfortunately I can’t describe each exercise as it would take half a day….I’m not sure how familiar you are with the Myo Manual program.  I think you attended a short class, either through Motivations or NSS-NRS, and I taught different things at different times. I hope this is somewhat helpful.  Let me know how it goes… Sandra