Building Better Oral Resting Posture for Breathing, Feeding, and Speech Sound Production

Proper oral resting posture serves as the foundation for efficient breathing, feeding, and speech sound production. This course provides clinicians with practical, hands-on strategies to assess and address oral resting posture through jaw stabilization, tongue elevation, lip closure, and sensory-motor integration. Participants will explore the relationship between oral resting posture and functional outcomes, including speech intelligibility, feeding efficiency, oral awareness, and airway health. The course will demonstrate the clinical application of tools such as TalkTools® Bite Blocks, tongue elevation and lateralization tools, Chewy Tubes®, SENSI®, Bubble Kits, and the Jiggler. Participants will also learn to recognize signs of tethered oral tissues (TOTS), understand the impact of tongue ties on oral function, and implement therapy techniques that support tongue-jaw dissociation, oral awareness, and optimal tongue-to-spot positioning. Practical activities, case examples, and treatment demonstrations will provide clinicians with immediately applicable techniques for use in therapy sessions.