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October 13, 2022

How Speech Correlates with Oral Health Development – Theraplay

Theraplay

Many parents don’t realize how closely teeth correlate with children’s speech development. Teeth have the ability to impact how children articulate words, produce sounds, and can have a lasting effect on a child’s ability to talk. Without teeth, a child would struggle with speech and feeding. Ironically, voice can be impacted as well and even language.To speak on this topic, we’re excited to feature a guest blog post from our community partner, Theraplay. Theraplay is an organization that provides occupational, physical, speech and feeding therapy for children from birth to 21.

Articulation and Language Production

Teeth can dramatically impact articulation, which is the ability for us to produce sounds appropriately. Articulation is what many commonly think of when it comes to Speech Therapists and their work. Some examples of articulation therapy are kids in school working on their ‘R’ and ‘S’ productions. Language production starts around the time of a child’s first birthday which is when they should have their first dental appointment scheduled.

At the age of one, children start to put sounds together and make requests through expressive language. During this developmental stage, children will start to learn where they’re anchoring their sounds in their mouth. As they get more familiar with vocalizing and mouth movement, their sound production improves.

How Teeth Development Can Impact Sound Distortion

At Theraplay, your child’s speech therapist will check on the development of their teeth to ensure that they’re healthy! Good oral hygiene improves a child’s chances of avoiding sound distortion. Some children have healthy teeth and can still struggle with the production of certain sounds. If that’s the case, speech therapists sometimes substitute the sound they’re having difficulty pronouncing with other sounds that will help them produce a sound successfully. Some sounds are impacted by teeth development more than others, which is why children often struggle with the ‘F’ sound and ‘S’ sound.

 

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