What is a Tongue-Tie and How it Affects Speech | www.agentsofspeech.com/checklist

Hey everyone, this is Meng here, speech therapist. In today's video, we'll be talking about tongue tie. So if I got a dollar for every time a person asks me if their child has a tongue tie, I'll probably be able to buy a better phone. You know, it is very easy for someone to say or like, be concerned about a tongue tie because of like a lack of speech ability or just general language delay. So without further ado, let's dive in right now. So first things first, what is a tongue tie? The real real name for tongue tie is Anglo Glossia. Without getting too technical and confusing you, anything that has the word glossier or something similar in a name, it just means tongue. Alright? Anyway, so let's just call it tongue tie so that it doesn't become a tongue twister for everyone in the world. What it really is is that under our tongue, I'll show a picture here. Under our tongue, there's this little membrane or whatever you call it, a little skin that might be too tight, too thick or too short that impairs the tongue from moving around. Okay? So whenever that happens, you have a tongue tie. A very easy and fast way to see whether your child or a child has a tongue tie is to tell that person or the child to stick their tongue out. So if they stick their tongue out like this, they shouldn't be able to see to make such a sharp, pointy tongue. What happens is that the tongue goes like this into a heart shape, into a heart shape. And that's because the tongue, the tie here is actually pulling onto the tongue. That's why it's making a heart shape right in the middle. So if you see that, most probably there's a tongue tie problem, keep in mind that there are different severities of tongue tie and you gotta be careful about that, okay? There are some people who have a tongue tie that isn't too severe, who can still eat, talk very normally. So what does it affect? A tongue tie has several effects on a person. The major two things that we like to talk about as a speech therapist is obviously feeding and speech. Okay? So in terms of feeding, if the tongue is impaired in its mobility, meaning it cannot move that well, first off, as a baby, maybe it cannot latch onto a nipple, like maybe it's the mother's breast or just a bottle because their tongue doesn't move freely. So that's number one. Number two is as they grow older, as we eat, we need to move food around our mouths. One of the things that we need to do is Actually to use our tongue to put the food onto the side so that we can chew. Right. So if it's a very severe tongue tie, that might be impaired as well. So all of the above, you need to find a speech therapist or doctor to determine whether there's a problem. And feeding. In terms of speech, the tongue mobility plays a very important role. And that's because our tongue needs to go places to create speech sounds. For this position our tongue needs to go is actually touching the top of your oral cavity right behind your front teeth. It's called alveolar ridge. So where it is, is right here at the top, right behind the front teeth. The sounds such as the L sound in love, like L in love, the N sound in night, T in tiger, D in dinner, all require your tongue to go to that position. And I find in my own practice that children who have an actual real tongue tie that affects speech have the biggest difficulty in doing the L sound because it needs to sustain at a certain height, hold there and descent in a controlled manner like that. So do you need to get rid of it? And the reason why I say it's a real or actual tongue tie is because not all tongue ties are made the same. Not all tongue ties will actually affect speech and feeding. I've actually encountered multiple cases. Just last year, think about it, I had five cases who came to me saying that, you know, a therapist, a doctor or a dentist had told the parents that, oh, your son is, he's got a tongue tie, you got to remove it so that their speech becomes more clear. I said, hey, don't do it yet. Let's see if we can stimulate some certain sounds before we make this decision. And although now the surgery for removing a tongue tie is super easy, it's very fast, it feels very incredibly fast, but at the same time, it's expensive. And that's because, number one, it's skilled labor. Need a dentist to do it. Most of, most of the countries, they use a dentist to remove a tongue tie. And second of all, I couldn't find really someone who still uses the metal thing that goes in your mouth. So there's a special equipment for it. I couldn't really find anyone anymore. Maybe I'm just out of luck, right? People are starting to change the laser and that's because it's more efficient, it's faster, it heals faster, but at the same time it's also more expensive. So it's a, you know, it's a double edged sword. Okay, so before you actually decide on doing it you gotta be careful. Experience tells me, actually not my own experience, but you know, from senior speech therapists, other therapists, other doctors and dentists tell me that after a child, especially if they have a speech sound problem, if you cut the their tongue tie, the whole sensory inside their mouth, oral cavity, it changes. So what happens is that children have to learn how to move their tongue again inside the mouth. Okay. And that is another process, right? So if you've been going through maybe like one or two years of speech therapy, suddenly it's decide to snip the tongue tie, you may have to go back and revisit the sounds that you've done before. And in the end, those five children that I met, we were actually able to stimulate and teach sounds that they didn't have. So that means the tongue t. I didn't really tie them down and at the same time I didn't really think that there was a tongue tie issue anyways. It's very easy to diagnose someone with a tongue tie with different severities, but it doesn't mean that it will affect speech. Sometimes it's a matter of practice. It might be another issue going on with their speech. And I will cover this in another video. If you have any questions, put them below. So do you have to remove it? You got to ask yourself this question. Number one, does your child have problems eating or speaking? Number two, if yes, is this problem related to the mobility of a tongue? And number three, if yes, is it like for sure, you can see that the skin, the membrane below the tongue is actually pulling onto the tongue really hard. So to answer this question, you can do two tests. It's very easy, very low tech. Of course, still see a speech therapist to confirm or a doctor to double confirm. Right. The first one is the one we talked about earlier in the video. Ask your child to stick their tongue out. If their child's tongue makes a heart shape. Not like this, right, but it makes a heart shape, then it already means that there's something pulling onto the tongue. Right. The second one is that if it doesn't really have a heart shape, but you cannot really make it out, try asking your child to put their tongue upwards to the alveolar ridge like this. And if you see that your child cannot reach the top of the mouth and at the same time you see the little membrane below the tongue is actually pulling really hard, you see it becoming really white and, and it's really tight, then it probably is a tongue tie. And you should see a doctor, a dentist a speech therapist immediately and just check it out. So thank you for tuning in to this video. If you haven't, please like this video and subscribe to this channel. Remember to share to friends and family who, you know, they might think that, oh, no, my kid might have a tongue tie or whatever. Watch this video first. And before we leave, I wanna send you guys a gift. It's a home therapy checklist for. For a child who is having speech and language difficulties at home. Okay. Please go to www.agentsofspeech.com checklist to download your checklist. I'll see you in the next one. Real soon. Bye.