A systematic review to assess and analyze the scientific evidence of available therapies for digital and thumb sucking in children is presented. The literature was searched using Medline, Pubmed, Ovid, EBSCO, ISI, Cochrane Library, Lilacs, Scielo, Scirus and the Internet, published between March 1985 and 2008. Inclusion criteria : Studies that treated finger or thumb sucking with any resource. The studies were required to be clinical trials or well done comparative studies. Meta-analysis or multicentric studies were considered as well. The children included in the studies required not to have had any other type of oral habit and /or neurological diseases and the diagnosis of finger or thumb sucking performed with anamnesis and other diagnostic tools. Out of 92 records found, 3 fulfilled the inclusion criteria. All of them support psychological techniques to treat finger or thumb sucking in children and do not support intraoral devices with the same objective. Although the selected studies accomplished the quality criteria, there are very few and thus do not allow to conclude that treatment of finger or thumb sucking in children is well supported. Treatment for thumb or finger sucking in children requires further studies.