Por Javier Molinares
AL DÍA TODAY
MELBOURNE — Julianne Love, una apasionada patóloga del habla, ha dedicado su carrera a mejorar las habilidades motoras orales y la comunicación. Originalmente de Dallas, Texas, Love se mudó a Florida a la edad de ocho años, donde creció en Melbourne. Su educación y carrera se caracterizan por el compromiso, la determinación y una pasión por ayudar a otros a tener éxito en sus vidas.
Her education and career are marked by commitment, determination, and a passion for helping others succeed in their lives.
Love attended Vieira High School in Melbourne. She was on the swim team and was a varsity swimmer, competing in the 100 butterfly. As time went on, she began to focus on a career in health and communication. She graduated with an associate’s degree from Eastern Florida State College while still in high school. She later attended the University of Central Florida (UCF), where she started out majoring in computer science but eventually switched to speech pathology.
“I met a girl who was in the program when I was on a trip to Georgia with some friends from college,” Love remembers. “She told me that she was majoring in it, and I was deciding what to change my major to. She told me that it was something in the health field, but it was also a way to help people a lot.”
After completing her undergraduate studies in Communication Sciences and Disorders at UCF, Love went on to earn her Master’s in Speech-Language Pathology from the The University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences (USAHS). She also completed clinical rotations in pediatric clinics and hospitals, training on the treatment of children and adults with communication disorders.
Another breakthrough in Love’s career was meeting Dr. Natalia Valderrama, a family friend, and mentor for years, who introduced her to myofunctional therapy, a treatment that works to correct oral motor disorders, including tongue thrusting. Love began to see that this practice could be applied not only to speech but to overall health, including sleep apnea and other breathing issues.
“I was always fascinated by how a small change in oral habits could have such a big impact on a person’s health,” Love explained. “It can help with everything from swallowing difficulties to correcting facial muscle weakness. That’s when I decided to start my own practice.”
Love’s practice, Airway Studio, is located at 903 Jordan Blass Drive, Suite 102, Melbourne, FL 32940. Her work focuses on patients with oral motor difficulties. She helps people retrain their tongue posture and address tongue thrusting problems, which can affect teeth positioning and breathing.
“One example of something that I do with a lot of patients is when they have a tongue thrust. A tongue thrust is when their tongue is pushing out on their teeth,” Love explains.
She notes that Dr. Valderrama often refers patients who have this problem, even if they have braces, as the tongue can still push outward, sometimes causing the teeth to misalign or leading to an open bite, with the tongue pressing against that area.
“What I do is I help them make their tongue in the habit of being up on the palate. So, I train the tongue to be where it should be, which is right on the roof of the mouth,” she said.
Dr. Valderrama explained that, in some cases, individuals may require a frenectomy after therapy to free the lingual frenum, allowing the tongue to position properly.
“Sometimes they might need to get that lasered or extended under here. But if they don’t need the surgery, it can also be helped with exercises,” she explains. “These exercises make their tongue stronger and retrain the tongue to sit right here. So, when our mouth is closed, it doesn’t push out, but it stays up on the palate where it should be.”
She also emphasizes the importance of tongue posture for proper development.
“Another reason why the tongue being on the palate is important is because sometimes, if the tongue isn’t up there, the palate can become very narrow. This leads to poor breathing,” she said. “It’s important for kids and babies, as they grow, to keep their tongue on the palate. If it’s low, the arch becomes narrow, which affects the nasal bone. A narrow palate leads to a narrower airway, causing breathing issues and other health problems.”
As Love continues to grow her practice, she looks forward to continuing to learn. She also hopes to expand her specialization and might consider getting her doctorate in the future to better understand myofunctional therapy and conduct research to prove its success.
Orthodontist and Julianne Love’s mentor, Dr. Natalia Valderrama, talks about the relationship between orthodontics and myofunctional therapy.
“What Julianne does and what I do complement each other. The airway and the way we breathe, we swallow, we speak, we sleep—it’s all directly related to the teeth, the mouth, the muscles, the face. So, I could not do the job that I do and the good work that I do without Julianne’s help,” Dr. Valderrama explained. “Julianne is amazing. She has treated many patients here that I wouldn’t have been able to treat without her help.”
Dr. Valderrama shared how she first met Julianne, saying, “I met Julianne because she applied for a job in my practice. She wanted to be an orthodontist and wanted to get some shadowing and experience. She was in high school, about 17 or 18 years old. Her mom is from Colombia, and I met her one week later by coincidence when we bumped into each other at the grocery store.”
Dr. Valderrama further elaborated on the importance of integrating myofunctional therapy with orthodontic care.
“When people have issues with their tongue posture or improper swallowing, these problems affect their teeth and the alignment of their mouth,” she said. “By identifying and having Julianne involved, my work becomes more successful, and the patients are happier. It’s not just about treating the symptoms; we treat the root cause of the problem, which often ties back to the tongue and its posture.”
For more information about her practice, visit the Airway Studio website or contact Julianne Love directly at 321.294.3172. Airway Studio offers personalized Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy to correct tongue posture, breathing, and oral habits, with the goal of improving sleep, speech, and long-term wellness for individuals of all ages.