False Teeth

Some time back Nathan had 3 major traumas to his 2 front teeth.  They finally fell out on the day Zachary came home from the hospital.  Cosmetically it hasn't been a problem, but we have noticed a couple speech changes.  After visiting with an Aunt this weekend whose daughter was in speech therapy up until Junior High for the same problem, I decided to pursue the topic with another orthodontist (the first one totally blew me off).  We saw one this morning that agreed it would be a good option.  So Nathan really is getting his two front teeth for Christmas.  They are making him a little retainer that will stay in place until his new teeth start to come in.  Yeah!  I didn't even have to go "Glenda Stoner" on them.  They were very nice!!!

Missing front teeth can cause a speech disorder, but it would be very specific to the sounds that typically require the tongue to touch the teeth, the best example is "s" which ends up sounding more like "th".  This is more a factor for a child who learned the sound with teeth, then lost them. Erin E. Harrison, MA, CCC-SLP

Speech/Language Pathologist