Well hello everyone! Today I wanted to tell you a little bit more about teeth. Teeth? Why on earth would a speech pathologist be talking about teeth? Well it turns out that teeth paint a great picture of the way that your tongue moves in your mouth. The tongue is vitally important to the way that we speak, eat, and breathe. And since it has such a big impact on many of the things that we address in speech and language therapy, I wanted to take a little bit of time to explain to you some of the red flags and things that we look for in our kiddos teeth and in their mouth.
- The first thing that we look for in our kiddos teeth is if they have a large space in between their two front teeth. This is an indicator that the little piece of skin that holds your lip to your teeth and your gums is pretty tight. This can result in difficulty making sounds that use your lips such as “OO” like “moo” for a cow. A tight upper lip can also make eating off of a spoon challenging and down the road can give older kids difficulty seeing sounds like CH, SH, and J.
- The second thing that we look for in kiddos teeth is if their mouth tends to look crowded, narrow with teeth crowding around. This can indicate that our kiddos are not able to reach their tongue up to the roof of their mouth when they breathe. If they cannot lift their tongue, it will shape the way that their hard palate, or the roof of their mouth, is shaped and expanded to be a nice wide arch. A narrow palate and crowded mouth can result in difficulty saying a variety of sounds and may indicate an unusual and undesirable tongue pattern.
- The third red flag is that your child has a big open space between their front top and bottom teeth when they smile or when they bite the back molars together. This is called an open bite. Most likely, that big open hole is super cute but you’re sure to see that tongue poking through it causing all sorts of slushy sounds, lisps, and distortions.
- Some other questions that we may ask parents include: Does your child snore? Does your child breathe out of their nose or their mouth? Does your child have difficulty chewing a variety of textures such as meats, raw vegetables, or even things that are dried such as beef jerky or dehydrated fruits. A “yes” to any or all of those questions may indicate some type of oral dysfunction.
While this sounds very intense and potentially horrifying, don’t fear! Our job as speech and language pathologist’s is to work with a team of professionals to ensure that your child has all the necessary tools, movements, and resources at their disposal to be able to be in effective communicator and eater! So even if you noticed some of the red flags above in your child, don’t hesitate to reach out so we can help set you on the right path or answer any lingering questions! Keep on smiling!
-Kasey
