I am curious if anyone else has encountered the following situation: there is a young ELL (5 years old) who had his top teeth pulled by the dentist because of his cavities. He is in need of a speech-language evaluation (not relatd to the teeth). He has commented to his family "I cannot talk because of my teeth". I work in the school setting, it is likely his evaluation would begin but not be completed before the end of the school year. I wanted an opinion if we should go ahead and test language and wait for the speech part of the evaluation until the fall (hoping his teeth might come in during the summer). Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Joy
Comments
Thank you for the responses. I am on summer break and checked the website to see if it was still operational. The child I wrote about had his teeth pulled when he was 3 years old and will be turning 6 during August (in case other readers were interested).
Posted by: Joy | July 10, 2007 10:12 AM
On average, a child's permanent upper central incisors start erupting at 7 years of age. On a child that loses his/her primary (baby) teeth really early, however, the eruption of the permanent teeth is often delayed even more.
Posted by: Orthodontist | May 30, 2007 1:30 PM
Dear Joy,
It's quite likely that your client perceives the very real difference in oral/tactile sensations that accompany a sudden change in dentition, such as having teeth pulled. However, his speech performance will not have changed "overnight" based on that event alone. In cleft clinic and in other settings, we often see children who seem to be initially troubled by sudden tooth loss, but accomodate to the altered articulatory environment within a few days.
You say that he does appear to need speech and language services, but you wonder whether the speech eval should be deferred until the new teeth emerge.
My recommendation is that you proceeed with both speech and language evaluations right away. Since he believes that he cannot speak because of his missing teeth, we have every reason to restore his communication confidence as rapidly as possible, by identifying his sound errors and developing a treatment plan that encourages him to produce or approximate the missing sounds --- even without those front teeth. The sooner he can overcome those sound errors and compensate with intelligible alternative productions, the better. Speech and language production will both benefit.
Posted by: Leslie | April 18, 2007 10:54 PM