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.