Tongue Tied Child (Any Experiences)

I have not had personal experience with this, but I did find this article that may help you.

http://www.entnet.org/HealthInformation/Ankyloglossia.cfm

Most of what I found says that this condition will not retard speech formation, but it makes the speech hard to understand. So a delay in speech may be from other causes. I would still have him evaluated because it could be due to hearing problems, a learning disability, or just that he is going to speak later than most children. I would start with a trip to the ENT first, who can assess the tougue tied issue as well as a possible hearing problem.

R.,
It's strange that a pediatrican didn't check this earlier. It is usually evident while the child is nursing early on.
I'd suggest calling Johns Hopkins Dept. of Otolaryngology.
If there are still speech issues, cued speech is a great way to help children express language. It can be learned in 2 weekends, and allows smoother reading and writing than sign language. If you want more info contact Maryland Cued Speech Assoc. or National Cued Speech Assn. Or contact me for more info. if you'd like.
L. M

Children typically only need to have surgery to correct a tongue-tie if they are having feeding problems at birth. You said your child is babbling and making some animal noises. If any of those noises include t,d, or n sounds, then your child's tongue can reach the top of his mouth with no problem. If he can make k or g sounds, then his tongue can move backward with no problem. That is typically a totally unnecessary procedure for a child (from a speech perspective).

Though I didn't have any experience with the tongue tied part, my son was a "later" talker. At his 1 year or may have been his 18 month appointment we had the same issue, he had very few words, and things he had been saying at one time he would no longer say. We saw a speech therapist. The sessions could be a bit hard at times. They always started out well but ended with him just frustrated. I began to worry that he may have a behavioral problem, or maybe a hearing problem. Within the next few months though it was like he suddenly started saying his alphabet. There was nothing we did differently. He had toys that said the alphabet and watched sesame street. So we bought him the leapfrog toy that sticks to the refrigerator and you put a letter in it and it says the letter and the sound it makes. He soon was saying so many words and now he is 2 1/2 and talks more than some of the children older than him. He likes the show word world and has learned to spell some words from that. He was an early walker but now he repeats everything he hears! Good luck to you and I hope everything turns out well!

My son was 18 months and only speaking like 2 words. not even MAMA. We started speech therapy through the county, and I started getting serious about signing.

I had always wanted to sign with him, but I didn't spend enough time to really learn much. SO when he wasn't talking, I started looking for classes. We took a paid class, when to a 3-day free class at Maryland School for the Deaf, I looked for signing things at the library (books, DVD's), participated at library signing classes (Kathy McMillan is our favorite when she is there.) We did up to 2 classes a week, and watched signing videos every day, and I read some adult signin stuff on my own.

He was signing and communicating in no time. He was putting multiple words together using sign within months.
It was so beautiful to be sitting in a car stuck in traffic and see him sign "cars, lights, fast" too me. (The lane going in the other direction was not backed up, but ours was.)

His big signing ureka, came a little before 2 years old, and then all of a sudden he started building his verbal vocab too. Slowly at first, I think he had 5 words by the time he was 2. But by 2.5 he was talking enough the speech therapy ended. By about 34-35 months he was talking in run-on sentences... and a vocab I can't count anymore.

He is still not as understandable as he is suppose to be. The speech therapist said we can restart under the education program if it doesn't pick up well enough.. I hear him improving all the time, so I am waiting until time to apply for 4 yr preschool at Twin Ridge, and if he's still behind a little, I may have him evaluated.

Even our speech therapist said that my son was the poster child for how much signing can help with speech. (She even thought signing did more for him than the speech therapy.)

My son is tongue tied too. We knew right away because it was pretty severe and you could see it when he cried. We took him to an ENT when he was a newborn, but since he had no problem nursing the doctor told us to reevaluate when he was a little older. He told us that the reason he didn't want to just clip it was because tongues continue to grow, but scars do not. If you clip it too early, you might end up making the problem worse than it would have been. That said, he told us that we'd want to continue to reevaluate his tongue because if eventually it did need to be cut, you want to do it before the child is 5.

Anyway, we took him to see a pediatric ENT when he was about a year old. The ENT got him to stick out his tongue and found that he could get his tongue (though just barely) beyond his lips, so he concluded that the tongue tie would NOT cause a speech impediment (though we might notice that it would take him longer to get certain words down).

I was a little nervous because at 2, he didn't seem to have as many words as other kids his age, but now all of a sudden at 2 and a half, he has a ton of words and is speaking more and more clearly every day.

My husband and I just delivered a new baby girl 2 weeks ago . She was born tongue tied. We had the hardest time getting an appointmnt for ENT, considering July 29th was the soonest and time (a week) was of the essence. Our lactation consultant Marissa was the one to get our little one in to another hospitaland it only took 5 seconds to clip what at the time is only dead skin. (no blood or pain involved) As the child gets older, I'm told that the doc usually does a Local anethetic and the tongue will be sore for a very short period of time. The area is more vascular, so there will be some blood. Just bone up on the research, but all in all it's worth getting it done. Your son may need some speech therapy or not. Whatever the case it will be minor. He's still young. Good luck and God Bless. ( Ihope I made some sense- not much sleep lately)

My daughter was also tongue tied. Our nurse noticed it the day she was born and we had it clipped when she was 2 days old. She barely cried and there was just a small drop of blood. She is now 16 months old and no one can tell that she had a problem. I do recommend getting it clipped as soon as possible. I have friends that did not get it done to their child until she was 6. Their daughter had a difficult time in school and still has speech delays and is 12 years old now.

My brother had this when he was little two, he is only 19 months younger than I am so I don't remember and of it, but I do know he was in speech therapy for a few years after that. Just to help him get his speech up to speed since it can be delayed. Good luck!

My daughter was tongue-tied also, and it was missed at birth. Right around her 2nd birthday, we had the surgery to have it snipped. When they are that age, it is considered surgery, instead of a little snip. They used general anesthesia to put her under for about 15 minutes, snipped her tongue frenulum, then stitched her up. If I remember correctly, she had to have the stitches removed about a week or two later, but that didn't require any anesthesia. I will tell you, those were the longest 15 minutes of my life, when she was under anesthesia. It all went very well, though. After the surgery, her face was a bit swollen and she was sore for a few days, but all in all she did great. She has not needed any kind of speech therapy, but she was talking fine before hand. As far as speech goes, boys typically develop a lot slower than girls, and my son didn't really start talking well until he was 3. My daughter, on the other hand, was speaking complete sentences by the time she was 18 months. If you do have the surgery, don't worry. It's completely out-patient, and truly only took about 15 minutes. Good luck to you.

Hi R.~

I was actually born tongue tied (though not as bad as it sounds like your little one was). My youngest was born that way as well and I had his tongue clipped at the hospital before we left. It is a simple procedure, it is literally a snip~ and shouldn't be that big of a deal. The Dr that did my son's procedure said that she could do mine if I wanted it done.

Hi R.
My son is 2 this month. At birth our Doctor saw he WAS tongue tied. The next week he had us come in and performed the procedure in his office. Asked my husband and I to wait out side. It took 2-3 minutes and my son seemed to have NO real recovery time. Our Doc wanted me to nurse him right after the procedure. He said the suction was good for stopping any bleeding. It was a snip of that skin that holds the tongue....and it looked like a small cut. My husband had the same procedure at age 7. Said it hurt but had no real memory of it being a problem. I'm sure it will be a little more intense with a 2 year old. But hang in there and don't be too unnerved..I think it will be a boo-boo to add to his collection..my boy talks well and he loves licking pop sicles! Which would not be happening unless we got this done! And yes I agree atleast you know what is impairing his speech. I love square dancing! Our church had a square dance last month!!!! Great FUN! :-) Take care...Deb

My daughter was tongue tied. We had hers taken care of before she left the hospital but it was one simple snip, no bleeding or anything.

Best Wishes!

Hi R.,

I have a 3 year old who is also tongue tied and he also had delayed speech. He was babbling and said a few words up until he was 2 and then his speech started to improve. Now at 3 he's talking much more and we can understand most of what he says. Our pediatrician is keeping an eye on it but said since he didn't have any issues nursing as a baby he probably has enough movement in his tongue to allow for him to speak properly. I will leave the decision to have the surgery up to him when he gets older because I'm not comfortable with having him go under general anesthesia at his young age. The procedure for a newborn is much simpler than for a child 2-3.

If you still have concerns I would suggest you speak with your pediatrician. Hope this helps.

R.

Hi R.,
I am actually surprised your pediatrician never checked under his tongue or noticed his tongue. I have a 6 month old who underwent the tongue tied surgery at 12 weeks old. That is one of the things they checked for when they are born. His surgery was like 5 minutes, and he was fine within a week. I was actually referred to a very good Pediatric Oral Surgeon, who performed the surgery. He was very good from the moment we got to his office until we were done, he vividly explained the procedure, was very good to our son, and allowed my husband to be in and hold our son during the procedure. I was told that although my son was babbling some, after the procedure he might loose some of it, since the brain had to reconfigured the speech and movement of the tongue all over again. We just had our 6 month check up and our pediatrician is waiting for his 9 month check up. If he doesn't start babbling by then he will get referred to a speech therapist. Our Doctor didn't want him to go past his first birthday without him babbling or saying some stuff. If you are concern about the procedure, then no worries there. It is fast, 5 minutes, and recovery time is of 1 week to be 100% but a couple of hours to eat normal. I hope this helps. I hope you do get other responses as our experience might have been a bit different from others. Just in case the Dr's number who did our sons surgery is Dr. Patrick Dolan ###-###-#### www.fairfaxoralsurgery.com
Good luck!