Background: Fixed orthodontic Appliances can change oral functions regarding chewing, swallowing, dietary habits, and speech during the early stages of orthodontic therapy.
Objective: This study aimed to explore the impact of fixed labial orthodontic appliances on speech sound production and the oral phase of swallowing in Arabic-speaking Egyptian children in order to raise the patient's awareness about the expected outcomes of this line of therapy.
Patients and Methods: The study was conducted on 14 children aged 6-18 years of both genders undergoing orthodontic treatment at the Orthodontic Department, Faculty of Dentistry, Mansoura University. The study excluded children with extracted teeth, faulty oral habits related to orthodontic deformity, previous orthodontic treatment, cleft palate, neurological disorders, or delayed language development. The patients were subjected to full vocal tract examination and subjective language evaluation. Then bedside swallowing and chewing evaluation of all consistencies and speech sound evaluation were done before fixed labial orthodontic treatment, after one week and after one month.
Results: Fixed labial orthodontics affected chewing as regards chewing speed, chewing duration and led to chewing discomfort and chewing sialorrhea. They also caused certain food restrictions and bad mouth odor. Swallowing evaluation parameters revealed a significant increase in the presence of oral residue with solids and semisolids. Fixed labial orthodontics affected anterior fricatives (/s/,/z/,/s/,/z/ and /ʃ,/f/), lingo-alveolars (/t/,/t/,/d/,/d/,/l/ and /n (/and bilabials (/b/ and /m/) but did not reach significance after one week and then starts to improve after one month.
Conclusion: Fixed labial orthodontics affect oral functions, especially in the early stages of treatment.