Understanding Tongue Thrust
What is Tongue Thrust?
Tongue thrust is a motor pattern where the tongue is pushing forward and out consistently during speech or feeding. I like to describe tongue thrust as the tongue popping or peeking out of the mouth where the tongue is often visible between the teeth or lips. This motor pattern can impact speech clarity and make it difficult for others to understand a child’s speech message.
Why might Tongue Thrust be a Problem?
Most sounds in English require us to produce the sound inside of our mouth. In fact, here only one sound (TH) that is made with our tongue outside of our mouth. Therefore, tongue thrust motor pattern often distorts speech sounds, as the tongue is coming out of the mouth for sounds that are made inside of the mouth. Helping the child retrain the motor pattern or tongue movement may be needed to help them produce clear speech.
At what age should Tongue Thrust end?
It should be noted that for some babies and young toddlers, tongue thrust is a normal developmental pattern that they will grow out of naturally by around age 3 as their speech and feeding patterns mature.
However, for other children, tongue thrust persists past age 3 and may cause challenges with speech. It may become difficult for a child’s listener to understand their message, thoughts, and ideas. For other children, tongue thrust only affects certain speech sounds, such as the S, T, or SH sounds. Tongue thrust can also be the root cause for lisps in children.
Causes of Tongue Thrust
Oral Habits: Prolonged use of pacifiers, thumb-sucking, or bottle-feeding beyond the appropriate age can lead to tongue thrust pattern.
Some children may have a predisposition to tongue thrust pattern
Immature feeding patterns and swallow patterns can allow a tongue thrust pattern to persist
Airway or Underlying Structural Conditions: Conditions such as enlarged tonsils and adenoids can obstruct the airway, causing individuals to push their tongues forward to facilitate breathing
What can we do about Tongue Thrust?
Speech pathologists play a crucial role in assessing and treating tongue thrust. Here are some common approaches:
Oral-Motor Therapy: This therapy focuses on retraining the muscles involved in swallowing, oral posture and tongue movement and coordination with speech and feeding. Exercises are designed to promote tongue placement and function.
Speech Therapy: Speech pathologists can work on articulation and sound production, helping individuals overcome speech difficulties related to tongue thrust.
Referral to address airway obstruction can help eliminate tongue thrust
Feeding Therapy: more mature patterns for feeding can be practiced to help retrain the muscles of the tongue to a more mature pattern than tongue thrust
Modifying Habits: Speech pathologists work with individuals to identify and change habits contributing to tongue thrust, such as thumb-sucking, pacifier use, or bottle use outside of the appropriate age
Please note: This is never meant to be taken as medial advice. You should always consult with your child’s healthcare providers such as your child’s pediatrician, ENT and speech-language pathologist if you are having concerns about your child’s oral-motor function such as tongue thrust.
