Diane,

My soon-to-be 9 year old daughter does amazing stuff with her tongue. She can
turn it back on itself and touch her tonsils (which are always large grapes but
the thought gags me, anyway!!). Even more "talented," she can curl her tongue
lengthwise and whistle through it, and she can fold it a few times to make a "W"
and once more to make a WW shape.

She had speech testing when we moved to Tennessee last year and they told us she
has problems with "S" sounds--she sticks her tongue out over her lower teeth. So
she's been in speech class last year and this. I guess it is getting better
though I never noticed she was doing it that way and am not real sure what the
big deal is one way or another.

She nursed until she was 4 1/2, though I don't know that that had anything to do
with the speech problem. I attribute it more to her teeth. She has huge teeth
and started losing them pretty early. When one would come out, the adult tooth
that would come in would push out the next two baby teeth on either side of it.
So she had huge gaps early and long. There were no teeth to stop her from
putting her tongue out and over!!

Her tongue flexibility may have a lot to do with the amount of exercise her
tongue gets....
;-)

Melissa Vickers, IBCLC
[log in to unmask]