Editor's Corner: Guest Editor

I have always considered myself to be an avid research enthusiast. I love opening a crisp, new smelling journal that I often open with childlike anticipation. I feel overwhelming excitement as I delve into the studies I was about to read, that would substantiate my passion within speech pathology, voice, orofacial myology, feeding and swallowing, apnea and the list goes on and on. Often, however, when I would open that tasty morsel of a journal, I would see the title, “Editor in Chief” and some blub written under it [notice I didn’t say ‘read,’] and for a quick second wonder, “what does the Editor in Chief do anyway?” Once that second was up though, “who cares,” would answer that thought and my fingers would ever so nimbly flip across it, thus skipping that section entirely, and move on to what I considered the “juicy bits” of the journal, the articles. I, for one, NEVER thought about all of the work that goes into selecting, organizing, editing, and paginating all of those ‘juicy bits” that one finds within a journal. Well, when Pat Taylor, the true Editor in Chief of the IJOM, said that she was going on sabbatical this year to do some research and asked if I could be the guest Editor in Chief of this precious journal, I blindly and quite naively said, “of course,” TOTALLY not realizing the enormity of the task I had just agreed to.

When she sent me the long list of things I had to do for each article and the journal as a whole. I have to humbly admit that I cried a little…a few times. At the end of the day, I am a Speech Pathologist, most importantly, a clinician, NOT a journalist or a publisher. I am also not computer savvy at all and knew nothing about pagination and formatting, which by the way were truly my worst nightmare. Let’s just say that I didn’t even know what ‘hanging indentation’ meant. As for the rules and regulations, legalities and copyrights that go into accepting articles and the kinds of articles you can and cannot accept and more, well there are tons of those that, I can only speak for myself, as a reader, I took for granted. Editing articles was truly mind blowing. Even after the hundredth time of reading the same article, an unwanted comma and/or a noun/verb agreement problem, that was missed, would rear its ugly head… honestly ‘data was’ versus ‘data were’…who knew there was a huge controversy on Google about that! So, I turned to Prayer and here we are. Now, I have to write that “little blurb” that I hope everyone will read from now on. I know I will. This journey was one, that thousands of thousands of hours later, was not done alone. It took a beautiful, generous and small intimate team that I would like to take a moment to thank.

To Pat Taylor: Thank you for your patience, understanding and advice when I would call you at all hours, frustratingly asking you the same questions over and over again! I admire and have a deep love, respect and appreciation for your having undertaken this project every year. I can never thank you enough for all you do for the IJOM.

To the Peer Review Board/Team/Family: Doctors Jayanti Ray, Hope Reed, Nancy Solomon and Elizabeth Roberts, I have learned so much from you brilliant and generous ladies. Thank you for always taking one more perspective study to review and the respect and consideration you gave to them all.

Thank you for being supportive and encouraging and for all of the advice that was given, that I will never forget.

To Steven McClenning and Hope Sweeney: Pagination, formatting and just full on helping me put all this together, well, all I can say is that I would have been lost without you. Thank you so much!

To all of the authors: Your brilliance, patience and sacrifice that you have made to educate the world is truly awe inspiring. What I love about you all is that you are not only researchers in a lab, spouting data and statistics. You are all clinicians, teachers and world class researchers who have posed questions and went above and beyond the call of duty to give back to our clinical world by answering and substantiating them. May the clinical community integrate what they are about to read into their respective practices.

To my family: Thank you to my husband, Scott, and my kids, Shanna, JJ, and Roman for understanding my late nights, never complaining and loving and encouraging me as I worked on this project. I love you guys so very much.

The IJOM is always seeking research that will help the world of orofacial myology progress. Orofacial myology is so much more than tongue thrust and digit sucking habits and their respective effect on the development of the physiology as a whole. In the 2003 Edition of the IJOM, in the Editor’s Corner [p. 3], Pat Taylor grouped the different topics within orofacial myology in the following way:

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Habituation: hypnosis, behavior modification, motivation

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Sleep Disorders: nocturnal habits, bruxism, apnea

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Speech: articulation, speech facilitation, oral dyskinesia, dyspraxia, dysarthria, dysphagia

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Special Populations: cerebral palsy, Down’s Syndrome

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Respiration: nasal patency, airway interference, mouth breathing, oral rest posture

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Craniofacial: temporomandibular joint disorders, craniomandibular disorders, facial growth and development including soft tissue, lingual and labial frenectomy, macroglossia, lesions of the tongue, lip retraction, excess facial growth

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Sensori-motor: neuroplasticity of the nervous system, neurofunctional reorganization, oral sensation and perception of vibrotactile stimulation, food textures, muscle tone, bulbar and cervical dystonia, muscle imbalance, body posture and body axis

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Other: aerophagia, relationship between orofacial myofunctional disorders and playing various wind instruments, nutrition

The endless questions that lie within any of those areas are infinitesimal. Don’t be afraid to ask them and seek answers. When you have done so, be brave and share it with the world. All article submissions and related questions should be emailed to: Patricia Taylor, Editor in Chief, at kptaylor2@verizon.net.

Finally, this volume not only includes pertinent research studies, it also has the top posters from the 2016 IAOM Convention and a Clinical Corner that speaks of the need to start the education of Orofacial Myology at the collegiate and graduate school levels in America. We also pay tribute to two icons who helped shape the IAOM, Marjorie L. (Marge) Snow, RDH and Anita Weinfield. A great deal was crammed into a tiny space, so please feel free to nimbly flip this page and enjoy the precious “juicy bits” that the articles herein contain.