The human face, with its bone and muscular structures, present singular and peculiar characteristics. It may be classified in three basic types, which are related with shape variation and craniofacial configuration, both vertically and horizontally, influencing directly the dental occlusion, facial harmony, orofacial muscles and stomatognathic functions. For this reason, diagnosing facial type is important to speech-language pathology practice. The aim of the present study was to perform a literature review regarding facial type characteristics, presenting recent researches and studies about the theme. A bibliographical research was carried out in the databases LILACS, SciELO, Web of Science and Google Scholar, in addition to books, dissertations and thesis about the subject in the past ten years. Several field researches proved some characteristics of facial types found, especially, in the older references. Some aspects, however, were controversial when the facial types were compared, such as the eletromyographic activity of the masseter muscle, respiratory mode and the length of the upper lip and of the philtrum. It was possible to conclude that knowing the facial type and correlating it to the stomatognathic functions, muscles and occlusion is an important factor for practical clinic, but the professional should be flexible when comparing the pacient's characteristics with results found in the literature. Thus, it is possible to avoid determining an abnormality or atypia when the case is only a variability or adaptation.
Face; Stomatognathic system; Dental occlusion; Diagnosis