Clinical variations of mouthbreathing

Thirty children identified during oral myology screening as "non-normal breathers" underwent clinical observation for the differential assessment of their mode of upper respiration. Procedures and clinical criteria for the successful differentiation of all subjects into four basic categories, including normal breathing and three categories of non-normal breathing, were presented. Implications of the reported findings relative to the traditional clinical and research dichotomy of "normal vs. mouthbreathing" were discussed.