As an SLP, I am sad to hear about Beth’s son. I have been speaking out about masks and their impact on children but never thought about kids holding their mouths differently due to trying to keep their mask on. There are so many harmful effects from masking that policy makers refuse to acknowledge. I still see many healthy teachers and therapists that work with young children continue to wear masks. They feel as though masks must “do something” but don’t recognize the negative impacts.
My 12 yr old has a speech disorder called dysarthria. He’s been in speech therapy through the school system since he was 22 months ago and in private during the summers from 4-11. He spent the end of 4th grade and most of 5th grade home and doing virtual speech therapy. Then when he was allowed to go back in person, twice a week, at the end of 5th grade it was masked. Most of 6th grade was masked. Within a few weeks of 6th grade and being masked all day 5 days per week at school we noticed he wasn’t opening his mouth all the way when he spoke. We theorized that it was because when wearing mask he, and everyone else, is holding his mouth differently to keep the mask from slipping off the chin or nose and for comfort. It was instinctual. This of course affected his speech. The SLP agreed but masking was the rule; the 1.5 hrs per month unmasked in the speech room was not enough to break this habit.
He had just started on /r/ and was working to perfect /th/ when the pandemic started. He’s still working on those now 3 years later and in the interim worked on /sh/, /s, and general intelligibility in unstructured speech. He went backwards. He lost years because of closed school and wearing a mask.
I’m sad to hear about those 3rd graders but there’s some comfort in knowing we’re not alone.
I definitely notice this and I knew from when we started wearing masks it wasn’t going to be good. I’m seeing a lot of harm from the things we did during the pandemic on the kids I tutor for reading.
As an SLP, I am sad to hear about Beth’s son. I have been speaking out about masks and their impact on children but never thought about kids holding their mouths differently due to trying to keep their mask on. There are so many harmful effects from masking that policy makers refuse to acknowledge. I still see many healthy teachers and therapists that work with young children continue to wear masks. They feel as though masks must “do something” but don’t recognize the negative impacts.
My 12 yr old has a speech disorder called dysarthria. He’s been in speech therapy through the school system since he was 22 months ago and in private during the summers from 4-11. He spent the end of 4th grade and most of 5th grade home and doing virtual speech therapy. Then when he was allowed to go back in person, twice a week, at the end of 5th grade it was masked. Most of 6th grade was masked. Within a few weeks of 6th grade and being masked all day 5 days per week at school we noticed he wasn’t opening his mouth all the way when he spoke. We theorized that it was because when wearing mask he, and everyone else, is holding his mouth differently to keep the mask from slipping off the chin or nose and for comfort. It was instinctual. This of course affected his speech. The SLP agreed but masking was the rule; the 1.5 hrs per month unmasked in the speech room was not enough to break this habit.
He had just started on /r/ and was working to perfect /th/ when the pandemic started. He’s still working on those now 3 years later and in the interim worked on /sh/, /s, and general intelligibility in unstructured speech. He went backwards. He lost years because of closed school and wearing a mask.
I’m sad to hear about those 3rd graders but there’s some comfort in knowing we’re not alone.
I definitely notice this and I knew from when we started wearing masks it wasn’t going to be good. I’m seeing a lot of harm from the things we did during the pandemic on the kids I tutor for reading.
Thank you for sharing. We appreciate your view and experience. Please continue to speak out about what you are seeing!