Tongue Resting on Teeth/mouth Breathing?

My 2 year old is seeing a speech therapist. He often has his toungue resting on his teeth, especially when he's consentrating. I didn't think anything of it because his cousin and his uncle (both on my husband's side) do the same thing. The the therapist mentioned it, so I asked. She said in my son's case, he has low muscle tone in his chin & jaw area. Because those muscles are weak, he doesn't have the strength to articulate properly. It will just take time and practice to strenthen those muscles. I asked my husband about our nephew and his brother, and he said they both were speech delayed.

No idea whether we're talking about the same thing, but it couldn't hurt to ask the speech therapist to explain it better. Talk to him/her about your concerns and what the ENT has said. Often times, medical professionals don't give you details unless you ask, so he/she might not even realize you are concerned.

Good luck!

One of my brothers and I both have big tongues. Mine's mostly long, his is mostly wide. He has to roll his tongue up like a taco to keep from biting it (his tongue sticks out half an inch past his teeth on all sides of his teeth if he relaxes). I have to keep mine pulled "in" or it rests on all my teeth but doesnt' stick out past on the sides, and back or it sticks out in front about an inch (yes, I can touch my nose with my tongue). Even with our mouths open, it's almost impossible to breath through our mouths, because our tongues get in the way of inhalation/expiration unless we "round" them (like sucking through a straw.

For BOTH of us, my mum used to always tell us to shut our mouths. "We are not a codfish" type. Shut your mouth. Fingers tapping us on the bottom of our chins. That sort of thing. Eventually we learned to keep our mouths shut. NEITHER of us are mouth breathers, nor have we been, it's just that it took a few years to learn to keep our mouths shut. And we bled a lot while eating... bitten tongues.

It sounds like a tongue thrust issue. My dtr (age 6) is currently in speech therapy for articulation issues. It turns out her issue has centered on a long standing issue of tongue thrusting. Since starting therapy, her awareness has improved greatly and her articulation issue is slowly improving.

One recommendation: ask your pediatric dentist and speech therapist to rule out the condition of being "tongue tied". Unbeknownst to me, this was longstanding problem for my dtr. We had her tongue snipped (via laser) 6 months ago. It hasn't improved her speech but she now has significantly greater range of motion which will no longer impede her speech progress.

Please feel free to send me a personal message if I can be of greater assistance. Good luck!

ADD: My dtr also had her adenoids checked by an ENT. Everything was fine. All in all, the invasive test for adenoids was not all that "invasive". The scope was the size of a spaghetti noodle and was done right in the office. My dtr tolerated the procedure remarkably well. One other thing I thought I would mention...normal resting position for your tongue is on the roof of your mouth. This was not the case for my dtr so it's been something we've been working on,

My daughter had to see a tongue therapist. I'd never heard of this profession before but she was recommended by our dentist because my daughter's tongue position was affecting her bite. Perhaps your son could be evaluated by a tongue therapist before sticking a camera up his nose!

Find a tongue specialist, as suggested below. Also check with a good pediatric dentist, as this can affect the development of the lower jaw, so that it doesn't widen normally.