I think I had one of these as a child!! If it is what I am thinking, I had to turn it every night with a keylike thing, to make it wider, hence expanding the roof of my mouth. It would be sore after I did it, but not extremely painful. The worst thing I remember about it, was I could not speak clearly. Your tongue is not able to strike the top of your mouth, and I couldn't say things like, Key, eight. I was made fun of and one teacher even thought I had a speech impediment (well, I guess I did). I was extremely shy and embaressed easily, it was nightmare. In math class, we always had to say our scores outloud for the teacher to mark them down, well, wouldn't you know, I swear I got an 88% EVERYTIME on my papers after that. Eventually, I just got up and showed her the paper (an option, usually for students with a bad grade), so everybody thought I was failing math. Couldn't win!! I hated reading outloud too. Same thing, kids are so mean!! Just make sure your child is prepared for this as well. My mom didn't bother to talk to my teachers, looking back, I wish she would have, I was just too shy to.