What might be the reasons why my child cannot speak clearly?

Speech is the most important way for humans to communicate. If a child cannot speak clearly, parents are often anxious, worried that their child cannot communicate with others normally, cannot integrate into society normally, and even has psychological problems such as inferiority. So, what is the reason for children's unclear speech? What should we do?

Speaking may seem simple, but it is actually a very complex process. It is completed by issuing a series of instructions to the peripheral organs of pronunciation (such as tongue, palate, lips, etc.) under the complex and precise control of the central nervous system (i.e. the brain). Therefore, unclear speech may be related to many factors, not just oral problems. The following will introduce several common oral-related factors.

Organic dysarthria

Some structures in a child's oral cavity, such as the upper palate, tongue, teeth, lips, etc., are very important organs of pronunciation. If these organs have morphological and structural abnormalities, it will lead to unclear pronunciation, which is called organic articulation disorder. The most common ones in the dental department are short tongue tie, cleft palate, and anterior crossbite (i.e., underbite). A short tongue tie requires surgery to correct the deformity (as shown in Figure 1), cleft palate requires surgery to repair the cleft (as shown in Figure 2), and anterior crossbite requires orthodontic correction, followed by speech training (very important), and unclear pronunciation can be improved or cured.

Functional dysarthria

After a detailed examination, preschool children have no motor disorders, hearing disorders, abnormalities in the morphology and structure of the pronunciation organs, and no neurological problems such as developmental delay. However, if they still have unclear pronunciation, it is called functional speech disorder. This is very common in clinical practice.

Functional articulation disorders can be improved through speech training. When children are less cooperative between the ages of 4 and 4.5, parents can train them at home and pay attention to their own clear and accurate speech to provide a good language environment for their children. If children still have difficulty pronouncing certain sounds after the age of 4 to 4.5, they can go to professional institutions for speech training.

Physiological dysphonia

If the child can pronounce most of the sounds clearly, but only some sounds are unclear, then the possibility of the child's brain, hearing organs, pronunciation organs, etc. suffering from diseases is small. According to the law of speech development, most children can complete the development of various sounds at around 4 and a half years old. Before that, some sounds are unclear, which may be due to physiological factors, because the child has not been able to accurately learn or grasp some pronunciation methods or the exact parts of pronunciation, resulting in the inability to pronounce certain sounds correctly. This can be observed.

The above are the common reasons in dentistry that cause children to speak unclearly. There are other factors that can cause children to pronounce unclearly. We will continue to explain them to you next time.