Dental Education Resources

From The American Academy of Pediatrics

Consequences of Dental Caries (Tooth Decay)

• The consequences of untreated dental caries on children’s overall health and well-being are substantial. Dental problems result in an estimated 51 million hours lost from school, costly emergency department visits, and hospital-based medical and surgical treatments. Poor oral health has been related to decreased school performance, poor social relationships, and less success later in life.
   
  
• Children are often unable to verbalize their dental pain. Teachers may notice a child who is having difficulty attending to tasks or who is demonstrating the effects of pain—anxiety, fatigue, irritability, depression, and withdrawal from normal activities—but cannot understand these behaviors if they are not aware that the child has a dental problem.
   
  
• Early tooth loss caused by dental decay can result in failure to thrive, impaired speech development, absence from and inability to concentrate in school, and reduced self-esteem. Children experiencing oral pain are easily distracted, unable to concentrate on schoolwork, and have problems with schoolwork completion. Children who take a test while they have a toothache are unlikely to score as well as children who are not distracted by pain. School deterioration and altered physical appearance caused by tooth loss or decay cause poor self-esteem.
   
  
• Left untreated, the pain and infection caused by tooth decay can lead to problems in eating, speaking, and learning.

Education Resources

Start Right Missouri Dental Association Public Resources Parents may think of a newborn baby as having no teeth, but the primary teeth that will erupt over the next few years are already present when your child is born. These teeth are crucial to your child’s dental development and important to their total health. The Start Right materials and education program was developed to address the importance of baby teeth and caring for these, and to give information on teething and tooth eruption, and practical tips to prevent early childhood cavities.

Stop the Pop iMDA Stop the Pop Program Soft drinks, juices and sports drinks provide huge amounts of sugars to many diets, and drinking too much can cause tooth decay and harm your health. Learn how these beverages can cause tooth decay and what you can do to prevent it and improve your health.

Smile Smarts Oral Health Curriculum

Smile Smarts! is an oral health curriculum for preschool through grade eight students offering flexible, modular lesson plans, support materials, hands-on classroom demonstrations, student activity sheets, and suggestions for further oral health activities.

• Shining Smiles! Grades Preschool–1 (Ages 4–7)
  
 

• A Lifetime of Healthy Smiles! Grades 2 & 3 (Ages 7–9)
  
 

• Teeth to Treasure! Grades 4–6 (Ages 9–12)
  
 

• Watch Your Mouth! Grades 7 & 8 (Ages 12–14)

Oral Health

Oral health means much more than healthy teeth. It means being free of chronic pain, cancers, lesions, birth defects (such as cleft lip and palate), and scores of other diseases and disorders that affect the oral, dental, and craniofacial tissues. Also, oral health is essential to general health. You cannot be healthy without good oral health.

• K-12 Oral Health Education Curriculum (Powerpoint Presentations)

American Dental Association (ADA) www.ada.org

Missouri Dental Association www.modental.org

Greater Springfield Dental Society www.grsds.org