Is a Tongue-Tie Delaying Your Child’s Language Development?

If your child can’t stick out their tongue or move it fully, it’s not just a developmental stage they’ll outgrow. Instead, they have a condition called tongue-tie, which physically connects more of your child’s tongue to their mouth than usual and inhibits movement.

According to board-certified family pediatricians Rainilda Valencia, MD, Deepika Saini, MD, FAAP, and the team from Valencia Pediatrics in Victorville, California, a tongue-tie can impact certain, but not other, areas of language development. Keep reading to understand the link between tongue-tie and language development and how you can help your child.

What is a tongue-tie?

The piece of skin that connects your tongue to the bottom of your mouth is called a lingual frenulum. Some babies are born with a frenulum shorter or longer than usual.

This doesn’t always cause problems, but in some children, it restricts the motion of their tongue. This causes the condition called tongue-tie. 

A tongue-tie can make it harder for your child to:

• Breastfeed
• Stick out their tongue
• Eat
• Brush and floss their teeth
• Play a wind instrument

Tongue-tie can also make it more challenging for some children to communicate orally.

Tongue-tie and language development

Your child’s language development skills develop using their brain. You can expect your child to learn words and understand language like they would without a tongue-tie.

However, a tongue-tie does cause challenges for some children’s speech. A tongue-tie makes it harder to move their tongue, making correct pronunciation more difficult.

In particular, letters like d, t, z, s, th, and n are often harder to say with a tongue tie. Other people might have more difficulty understanding your child when they’re saying words with these pronunciations.

Correcting a tongue-tie

Some children don’t need any intervention for a tongue-tie. But further evaluation is needed if your child has problems pronouncing words or sounds and has a tongue-tie.

Speech-language therapy

Many children with tongue-tie and pronunciation challenges can improve their speech without surgery. Our team often refers your child to speech-language therapy to help them learn to better pronounce words.

A speech-language pathologist is also best equipped to assess whether your child has speech-language needs for reasons other than a tongue-tie and address all their needs in therapy.

Exercises

Myofunctional exercises are specific facial exercises that strengthen your child’s tongue and facial muscles to improve their tongue movement. These can help with speech, feeding, and oral hygiene.

A frenectomy procedure

If your child’s tongue-tie causes problems in multiple areas of their life and solutions like speech-language therapy haven’t worked, a minor surgical procedure called a frenectomy can help.

A frenectomy is a simple and quick in-office procedure. During a frenectomy, your child’s clinician snips their frenulum with sterile scissors to allow for more tongue flexibility and movement. Your child can go home after the frenectomy is complete. They can expect to heal quickly.

If your child has a tongue-tie that’s bothering them or a speech-language delay, our pediatric team can help. Contact us today to make your child’s appointment.