Braces bring about some major changes. For one, you’ll soon have the smile you’ve always wanted. For another, your mouth suddenly has brand new hardware inside of it, which will take some getting used to.
It’s common to get a small lisp while your mouth adjusts to all of this change, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. However, if you’re bothered by it, there are a few things you can do. In this guide, we’ll offer up seven tips for avoiding lisping with braces.
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What Causes Lisping During Braces Treatment?
Many parts of your brain and body work together to create speech. Your tongue is a major part of this operation — it does precise acrobatics in your mouth each time you speak. When we change the tongue’s environment, it can take a little while for it to adjust to its new surroundings.
Braces take up a significant amount of space in your mouth. Imagine if your home was suddenly much smaller. Something as simple as making your morning coffee could cause you to fumble around, as you get used to the new parameters of your space. The same is true for your tongue. However small the change to its environment, it needs time to adjust.
Lingual braces offer additional challenges, since the hardware for this form of treatment is attached to the back of teeth instead of the front. This significantly takes away from the space the tongue needs to correctly form sounds. It also inhibits access to the teeth themselves, arguably making this form of treatment the most challenging in terms of speech.
7 Ways to Avoid Lisping During Treatment
It will take time for your tongue to become used to its new environment during your braces treatment. Here are some tips that can help you move this process along as quickly as possible.
1. Talk More, Not Less
Some people get shy when they first get their braces on, and unexpected speech issues can make those feelings even more exaggerated. If you’re feeling discouraged about your speech being affected, that’s understandable, but it’s important to talk through it.
The more you talk, the more your tongue will have a chance to get used to its new surroundings. Your talking doesn’t need to all take place in public if you’re feeling reserved. You can get plenty of talking done in the privacy and comfort of your own home.
2. Be Patient
It can feel aggravating when our words don’t sound the way we intend them to. Try your best to be patient with yourself and remember that this is temporary. Your tongue will eventually accommodate your orthodontia and behave the way you’d like, it just takes a little time.
With lingual braces, it may take longer for your lisping to fade. Go into treatment with reasonable expectations, and try not to get frustrated when your diction isn’t instantly perfect.
3. Enunciate
Lisping makes certain sounds more difficult to produce, like ‘s’, ‘st’, and ‘z’. If your braces are giving you a lisp, it’s understandable that you’d want to speed through or steer clear of words with those challenging sounds.
Try to avoid that impulse, and instead work through those sounds as best as you can — even if it takes a few tries. The more you work through these sounds, the better.
4. Sing
Sometimes folks get so nervous about speaking correctly that their nerves cause their speech issues to get worse, not better. This can create a vicious cycle, where our nerves affect the outcome, which only adds to our nerves. Singing is a great way to work on your diction and get out of your head.
Singing along to a song you love can help you work through tough sounds, without putting as much pressure on yourself. If you’re uncomfortable having an audience, that’s fine. Your shower is as good a place as any to sing a few tunes while your tongue gets more accustomed to your braces hardware.
5. Read Aloud
Reading aloud is an excellent way to practice your diction during braces treatment. This can be done privately, or with others. Read something you’re genuinely interested in, to try and disarm any anxieties you might have about speaking. Try not to rush through challenging sounds, push through them as slowly as you need to. It may take a few pages before it starts feeling natural, but stick with it.
6. Try Wax
It can take awhile to grow accustomed to the feeling of brackets and wires in your mouth. If your braces brackets are causing you discomfort or sensitivity, your orthodontist can give you dental wax. You’ll apply this wax onto the brackets causing you trouble. The wax will work as a barrier between the brackets and your mouth.
This can help to improve lisping caused by braces treatment, as the tongue and cheeks won’t have restricted movements due to soreness. Wax may be especially helpful for folks with lingual braces, since the hardware is located so close to the tongue. Your mouth will eventually get used to the feeling of braces, so for most folks dental wax is more of a temporary measure than a permanent fixture of treatment.
7. Remember, You’re Your Harshest Critic
If you’ve ever cringed while listening to a recording of your voice, you already know how easy it is to be self critical. We spend more time with ourselves than anyone else does, so our ears are highly attuned to any change in our speech.
Though you may be hearing your new lisp like it’s coming out of a megaphone, it’s unlikely it sounds that extreme to anyone else. Try to be kind to yourself, and recognize that no one is going to be a harsher critic of yourself than you.
Will My Lisp Go Away Naturally Over Time?
Your lisp will gradually fade away over time as your tongue grows accustomed to your braces hardware. You can help this process along by actively working on your diction and working through words that are challenging.
Remember that your tongue is a muscle, and like any other muscle in your body, it can adapt. Think of saying difficult sounds as exercise for your tongue. At first it may feel impossible, but the more reps you do, the easier it will become.
Losing your lisp will typically happen more quickly with traditional braces than lingual braces due to the location of lingual braces’ brackets. But the same logic applies with lingual braces — the more you say challenging sounds, the easier it will become.
When to Involve a Speech Therapist
Though a lisp from braces treatment should go away on its own over time, in some cases this process can take longer than others. Particularly with lingual braces, due to their location, it’s possible that you may still be lisping months into your treatment. If this happens to you, talk to your orthodontist about whether or not the involvement of a speech language pathologist (SLP) may be a productive next step for your treatment.
An SLP can provide you with targeted speech and jaw exercises to directly address your lisp. For some, this may be the final step in eliminating their lisp for good. Involving an SLP isn’t necessary for most folks during braces treatment, but knowing this option is available can provide a great deal of peace of mind for those worried about a temporary lisp.
Final Thoughts
Remember: your lisp during braces treatment is temporary. We’re confident that by utilizing the tips we’ve outlined in this piece, and being patient with yourself throughout this process, you can successfully avoid a lisp during braces treatment.
Frequently Asked Questions
Am I more likely to lisp during treatment with traditional or lingual braces?
You’re much likelier to experience a speech issue during lingual braces treatment, since the brackets are affixed to the backs of your teeth instead of the front. This is a lot of hardware for your tongue to get used to. With either form of treatment, your lisp will fade over time.
Will my aftercare retainers cause me to lisp?
It may take your tongue a little while to grow accustomed to your aftercare retainers, but if you take the tips from this piece and apply them to your aftercare retainers, you should work through your lisping in no time.
Will I experience speech issues with supplemental attachments like an expander during braces treatment?
Supplemental attachments may result in speech issues for a short amount of time during braces treatment. An expander is placed on the roof of your mouth, which will be an adjustment for your tongue. Like most orthodontic treatment related speech issues, this will only be temporary.
How long will a lisp during braces treatment last?
With traditional braces, up to about two weeks. With lingual braces, this can sometimes continue for a few months.
Does everyone experience temporary lisping during braces treatment?
Not everyone experiences lisping during braces treatment, so it’s possible you won’t have to work through this element of treatment.
Am I likely to develop any other speech disorders during my braces treatment?
Braces hardware can sometimes cause an accidental whistling sound to occur. Usually though, this happens the other way around, and braces treatment can actually stop accidental whistling from happening due to closing the gaps of teeth.
Is flossing more difficult during braces treatment?
It is more time consuming to floss during braces treatment, due to the archwire connecting each of your braces brackets. In order to floss you’ll need to thread the floss beneath the wire for each tooth. This can feel a little tedious, but there are small devices you can purchase that make the floss threading easier.
Which form of braces treatment is the most affordable?
Traditional metal braces are usually less expensive than specialty braces like lingual, ceramic, and self ligating. Traditional metal braces are on average $1,000 cheaper than ceramic and self ligating braces, and can be $3,000-$5,000 cheaper than lingual braces. These prices vary depending on your condition severity and where you receive treatment.
Do the elastic ligatures that connect my braces brackets to my wire become stretched out?
The elastic ligatures on your braces brackets do get stretched out, which is why these ligatures are replaced every time you visit your orthodontist during treatment. The more stretched out these ligatures are, the less consistent the pressure placed on your teeth. So replacing these bands is a very important aspect of your overall treatment.
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