Hallie Bulkin explains why tongue exercises fail: they only work if you change what your tongue does the other 167 hours a week. If you slip back into old mouth breathing or swallowing patterns outside therapy, the exercises don't stick. Real progress means your body changes automatically, not just during the few minutes you practice.
Treatment isn't about having the perfect exercise. Treatment is about changing function. And I want to say that again because I think it's really, really important. Treatment isn't about changing exercises. It's about changing function. Okay? The exercises are simply one of the tools that we use to get there. Okay, so think about it this way, right? If I teach someone where their tongue belongs during a therapy session, but for the other 167 hours that week, it's just chilling on the floor of their mouth, it's resting down there. Did we actually change anything? I did not. Probably not, right? If they're breathing through their nose beautifully while they're sitting in my therapy room, but they're mouth breathing the rest of the day when they know I'm not watching them, I haven't changed the pattern yet. If they can perform every exercise perfectly in isolation, but then they go right back to their old swallow when they eat dinner, we're not done, right? Because the goal isn't to create somebody who is quote unquote good at exercises. The goal is to create somebody whose body no longer needs them, right? That's treatment.
What I Was Missing in Feeding Therapy: ARFID, Airway, and Myo with Samy Hernandez
