Tongue tie related speech issues

source

We’re having an issue with speech with our beautiful little 3.5 year old daughter. She was having difficulty with her speech and forming some words, we raised it with our GP who had a look and noted that she was tongue tied, first we had been made aware of it. She suggested going to an ENT to see about getting it cut, (this was about 8 months ago). The ENT noted that she is both tongue tied and lip tied and advised against cutting either at this point and to concentrate on speech therapy.


She’s been in speech therapy since and has made considerable improvement, but we’ve plateaued and the therapist reckons it is because of the tie, as she’s having difficulty bringing her tongue to the back of her teeth and is “backing” her words (forming them with the back of her tongue rather than with the front).

This has already had an affect on her in her play school, and she gets frustrated easily because people can’t understand her unless they’re used to how she talks, if I’m honest, even we struggle at times. We’re moving her to a new preschool this year which will work with her on this, but we can’t help but feel the tie will hold her back and we don’t want it affecting her when she starts school, (we all know how cruel kids can be when someone is different, we don’t want her left out and alone in school).

The therapist we’ve been seeing said she would push to get the tongue tie cut, but not the lip tie (as this can apparently cause scarring if cut too early), she hasn’t sent her report to the ENT yet, but has shared our daughters file with other therapists and one she would trust has advised against cutting the tie as she reckons it could cause issues with our daughter being able to control her tongue.

We’re pretty confused at this point as to what we should be doing. We don’t know anyone who has been through something like this so have nobody to go to for real world advice.

Does anyone on here have any experience of this? Did cutting the tie cause issues for your child or resolve the speech issues?

jlm29

I haven’t got an answer to your actual question, but if I was in your position I would contact Dr Justin Roche in Clonmel. His clinic is called the national tongue tie centre, and he is excellent, and worth travelling to see, a lot of the time. I know most of his clients are probably babies, but I think that he would be able to give a more definitive answer to your question. An “ordinary” ENT probably wouldn’t have the same level of experience as him specific to tongue tie.
I’m sure if you phone or email, someone there would be able to advise on whether or not he would be in a position to review your daughter.

source

jlm29 wrote: »

I haven’t got an answer to your actual question, but if I was in your position I would contact Dr Justin Roche in Clonmel. His clinic is called the national tongue tie centre, and he is excellent, and worth travelling to see, a lot of the time. I know most of his clients are probably babies, but I think that he would be able to give a more definitive answer to your question. An “ordinary” ENT probably wouldn’t have the same level of experience as him specific to tongue tie.
I’m sure if you phone or email, someone there would be able to advise on whether or not he would be in a position to review your daughter.

Thank you, that is great advice. I will definitely look him up.

jlm29

source wrote: »

Thank you, that is great advice. I will definitely look him up.

He has a public clinic in the hospital, you can be referred there and wait, but the wait times to see him privately are negligible.

scarepanda

Definitely look him up, although he doesn't treat infants over 12 months old in his clinic afaik as they need to be sedated/under anesthesia after that point for the procedure (babies just get some local anesthetic on the area). But as jlm has said he does work from one of the local hospitals (sorry I'm not from the area so not sure which one but I'm almost certain it's mentioned on the clinics page).

We got our daughters tongue tie snipped by him when she was 9 days old and we had a list of different excercises that we needed to do with her even at that age to retrain how she used her tongue. So they would have age appropriate excercises for your daughter to do aswell.

shesty

This was raised as an issue for us last year with our now 3 year old.I was concerned about her speech and a tongue tie was suggested.Thankfully we were lucky enough that she doesn't have one.We had her assessed by an speech therapist at the time (for speech) who suggested that she could do a report, and the GP or PHN would be the next point of call.I did bring her to the GP who told me no tongue tie but maybe to think about getting her adenoids looked at, and to go to the Eye and Ear hospital for that.

On the tongue tie though, the consensus definitely seemed to be that they won't do anything about unless her speech problems are really quite severe.I would definitely contact a tongue tie specialist, as there is an awful lot of very conflicting advice out there.I was dealing with a breastfed baby at the same time who needed a tongue tie looked at and I was getting different advice from everyone who looked at him (and her).You could possibly consider getting a second opinion from a speech therapist, and maybe visiting your PHN/GP to advise on what your options are.I hope you find an answer because it is very tough to get straight advice on it.

yellow hen

Shesty, just out of curiosity, why did the gp suggest getting her adenoids looked at? Did you do so, and what was the outcome? (If you don't mind me asking).

shesty

Clarity of her speech was my issue.She has tonnes of vocab but seems to form some sounds slightly strangely -almost like she has a marble in her mouth.She was very young when assessed by the SLT, only 2.5, so it was hard to tell much for definite.But the SLT & GP were certain there was no tongue tie, but GP could hear the clarity issue that I was talking about.She had a look at her tonsils, said they were a bit large and it could be an indicator of large adenoids.She was also asking though, does she snore, does she have runny noses a lot, that kind of thing- they can be an indicator.

I felt the speech issue was a structural thing so to be speak, with how she moves her tongue in her mouth.The GP kind of gave me a couple of options-hearing test to be doubly sure she can hear properly (she has waxy ears), or an ENT appointment to see about the adenoids.Honestly I haven't done either yet, but I was going to do the hearing first because the ENT was a bit more invasive, and I wasn't even 100% sure she had a problem.The thing is she was only 2 & 10mths at the time too, so there was an age factor.She is over three now,and I can hear a big improvement.I will get her hearing checked I think, because she does tend to be at her ears a lot but I am leaning towards giving it more time before I do anything else.

Digs

Am on the same page as you OP, albeit with my eldest who just turned 6. When she was born we had huge issues breastfeeding, which we muddled on through as we knew no better. It was only when my second was born and I was armed with better knowledge when having her assessed for a tongue tie at 2 weeks I mentioned the issues with my older girl. Then a lactation consultant said she could see a tie (in both girls, subsequently the younger had her tongue and lip tie lasered).

I feel like I’ve had every opinion under the sun on it. My eldest has very gappy teeth and has speech issues. Her speech was delayed but around 2.5 it really started to take off. We brought her to private SLT before then but were advised she would just too young to do anything at the time. At her 3yr check the PHN referred her for SLT as she agreed she was very muffled and hard to understand. Through SLT we found she was backing (like your child) and also has a middle mouth lisp. So it’s not a lisp in the traditional sense but she pushes the air out of the sides of her mouth and it makes her harder to understand. The SLT mentioned the TT at the time and advised going back to the GP about a revision. Went back to the GP who didn’t agree. We have family members who are dentists and GPS who also disagree on what to do. It’s painful really!!

I’m not sure where we’ll go from here. My second who had the TT revised as a baby has zero speech issues and teeth have grown fine. That could well be just conincidence. I’ve had a 3rd baby since who I brought to Dr O’Reilly in the Camden Clinic at 1 week old as a TT again was identified in the hospital. He said the grade wasn’t too severe and as we were feeding fine he would advise to leave it which we did. I asked about my older girl then and could the tie if left affect this babies speech etc and he said in his opinion it wouldn’t.

So I’m sorry! I’m not much help at all! What I will say though is the difference in speech between her at 2.5 and now at 6 is enormous. She has come on hugely and her issues are really just very mild.

shesty

Almost identical progression of events here Digs, except my eldest is abnormally clear, and my second is the issue.Lactation consultant identified a stretched TT in the eldest last year (aged four, she was out to see our baby).
It's bewildering, they all tell you different things.