Kids Developmental Dentistry

You may think that Parker Family Dentistry is a place you take your children for cleanings and cavities, and you’d be right! However, other factors play a much bigger role in a child's overall health and development than many realize.

A Whole-Child Approach to Care

Our dentists take a whole-child approach to dental care. We monitor:

• How teeth are coming in
• How the jaw is growing
• How the airway functions
• How habits or structural issues affect development

Identifying concerns while your child is still growing almost always leads to better outcomes than waiting until later.

When jaw space is limited, teeth may become crowded, overlap, or even erupt in the wrong position. The following treatments are designed to help create and maintain the space a developing smile needs.

• Spacers and Expanders — Spacers are small devices that hold open the gap left by a lost baby tooth and preserve room for the permanent tooth coming in behind it. Expanders gently widen the upper jaw and create more space for incoming teeth and correct bite alignment.
• Kids' Extractions — Sometimes, we recommend removing a baby tooth to allow a permanent tooth to come in properly. Our dentists perform children's extractions gently, using local anesthesia and nitrous oxide when needed for comfort.

Facial Growth and Development Assessment

Our dentists monitor facial development, watching for patterns that can affect how teeth erupt and how the bite comes together. A narrow jaw, uneven growth, or an imbalanced bite are much easier to address while the bones are still forming.

Pacifier Use and Thumb Sucking Therapy

These are normal, comforting habits for infants and young toddlers, but they can begin to affect jaw and oral development when they continue beyond age three or four. Common effects include an open bite, a narrowed palate, and changes in the position of front teeth.

After assessing how these habits affect development, our dentists can offer strategies for moving on from them, without making the child feel ashamed or pressured.

Myofunctional therapy is like physical therapy for the muscles of the mouth, tongue, lips, and face. When these muscles don’t work properly, it can affect breathing, swallowing, speech, and even the way the teeth and jaws develop.

The goal of myofunctional therapy is to gently retrain those muscles to help with habits like mouth breathing or tongue thrusting. This is a noninvasive approach, and typically involves simple exercises done consistently over time.

Schedule a Developmental Dentistry Consultation

If you have questions about your child's development, a habit that concerns you, or something your child's teacher or pediatrician has flagged, we are happy to take a look and share what we see. Early answers are almost always better than waiting.

Call our Logansport, IN, dental office at (574) 753-454 to schedule an appointment with Dr. Travis Parker or Dr. Esi Parker.