Danielle said:
"Often times, if it's not clipped at infancy, it may need to be clipped as the child gets older, due to speech problems."

Sorry Danielle, the Speech Pathologist is going to cry foul. There is simply not adequate evidence to support that statement. There is no body of research on the incidence of speech problems in children with tongue tie. It's certainly a possibility and I'm sure we've all known a tongue tied child who also had speech problems. However, just as many of us know tongue tied children with no speech problems at all. You definitely can't say that an unclipped tt will "often" need to clipping later due to speech problems. 

This is a huge pet peeve of mine. It KILLS me when I hear LC's (or any other health care professional or breastfeeding support person) tell parents their child will have speech problems if they don't clip the frenulum. It makes us sound like we don't know what we're talking about and we're using scare tactics to make parents do what we think they should do. Furthermore, if the parents did happen to go home and look at the American Speech Language and Hearing website (asha.org) they are going to find primarily articles like this one (http://www.asha.org/Publications/leader/2005/051227/f051227a.htm) that tell them, "...it can be assumed that ankyloglossia is unlikely to cause speech problems in most cases." Which again, makes parents doubt that you (or WE, collectively as LC's) know what you're talking about. We damage our credibility when we do things like that. 

(Disclaimer: I am not stating a personal opinion either way on whether or not tt "causes" speech problems. I think we don't *really* know. Don't send me hate emails now!) 

Sorry, I couldn't let that one slide. I'm a Speech Pathologist. We're very concerned about semantics;-)

As for insight into why some people would hesitate to clip, please see the recent thread on tongue tie. It was fantastic.

Laura Wasielewski MS, CCC-SLP, IBCLC
Los Angeles, CA

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