Phonetic Rehabilitation by Speech Therapy Following Lingual Frenectomy

• Published in: Journal of Integrated Health Sciences
• Main Authors: Priya Gopal Shetty, Ramya R. Iyer
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wolters Kluwer – Medknow Publications 2020-01-01
• Subjects: lingual frenectomy; phonetic rehabilitation; social stigma; speech therapy; tongue exercise
• Online Access: https://journals.lww.com/10.4103/JIHS.JIHS_42_19

A patient named Miss. Ayesha Saiyad, 18-year-old female, reported to the Department of Public Health Dentistry after undergoing lingual frenectomy for ankyloglossia, in the Department of Periodontics. As she was tutoring school students, she wanted improved clarity of her speech. Through postfrenectomy speech therapy sessions, we aimed to rehabilitate the patient's phonetics and improve her confidence in performing her work. Speech therapy sessions included counseling, motivation for improved speech outcomes and exercises to improve the range of the tongue movements. In the first visit, after recording the chief complaint and speech assessment it was noted that the patient's speech was comprehensible. However, problems were observed during production of speech sounds such as/l/,/ll/,/th/,/tha/ and/r/. The patient was diagnosed with a phonetic articulation disorder. Subsequently, the patient was advised to undergo speech therapy sessions. The counseling session was carried out and tongue protrusion and elevation exercises were demonstrated with the aid of the mirror. The patient was advised to practice the same at home. The patient was recalled after 1 week. Counseling was given and tongue elevation exercise holding water in the tongue was taught to the patient. While exercise and rolling of tongue were taught to improve tongue mobility. There was an improvement in tongue protrusion by 2 mm postspeech therapy. The patient was able to touch the palate with her tongue with mouth open, postspeech therapy. There was improvement in production of speech sounds/l/,/ll/,/th/,/tha/ and/r/. The patient's speech significantly improved after speech therapy.