Tongue Reduction and Articulation in Children with down Syndrome

Abstract

Tongue reduction surgery was completed on 18 children with Down syndrome. In Study 1, changes in articulation were evaluated pre- and post-operatively and at a six month follow-up. No significant differences in the number of articulation errors were found. The post-operative and 6 month follow-up scores of the surgery group were compared to a non-surgery (control) group (N = 9) who had received two evaluations 6 months apart. Again, no significant differences were found. In Study 2, a survey of parental ratings on articulation of the surgery and non-surgery (control) group revealed that there were no significant differences between the groups, but that parents of all the children claimed that ‘speech’ had improved over the six-month time period. These findings suggest that surgery has no effect on the articulation of sounds.