Objective: The purpose of the study was to determine whether children are more negatively perceived because of a lip incompetence.
Study design: A sample survey study.
Methods: Two sets of colored pictures (1 set with the mouth open and 1 set with the mouth closed) were taken of four children with lip incompetence and mouth breathing and four children with normal lip closure and breathing patterns. These pictures were presented to a group of judges in Belgium and Brazil. Judges were presented either pictures of the closed mouth sets or pictures of the open mouth sets and were asked to rate on a 10-point scale the chance that the child was shy, had few friends, belonged to a lower socioeconomic class, had problems with reading, writing, or arithmetic, had ever manifested thumb-sucking, and had difficulties breathing through the nose. In each child, scores obtained for the open mouth set were compared with those obtained for the closed mouth set.
Results: There was no consistent pattern of higher scores being assigned to the pictures of the open mouth set, neither in the Belgian survey nor in the Brazilian survey.
Conclusion: Contrary with past and present claims, results suggest that children with a lip incompetence are not necessarily perceived negatively.