Tongue in or Tongue out...

[fizzyanddizzy]

I have a baby boy with down's syndrome and was having a conversation recently with one of the professionals who supports him which went along the lines of...

It's better to support children with down's syndrome to "pop their tongue in" because they already look different enough as it is and if you can teach them to keep their tongue in, its just one less thing to worry about.

This was said with the right intentions by the professional but I feel somewhat riled by it (and have a childish urge now to teach him to stick his tongue out at all opportunties ).

Am I being naive to think that as it is societys issue rather than his - let them deal with it?

hello fizzy, I also have a dc with DS - she's 8 so we're a bit further down the line . I do remember those days when she was a gorgeous little babe and not an opinionated little madam

Re. the tongue thrusting I would say that it is really important to teach him to keep it in - not because it looks more socially acceptable but because a) it is quite dangerous to have your tongue between your teeth if you're not completely steady on your feet - when he's walking he could trip up and bite through it - it's a frequent injury in children with DS unfortunately.
But the main reason really in my opinion is that he needs to learn tongue control to help him with his speech when he is a bit older. It's never too early to start doing oral-motor exercises to increase jaw stability and strength in the oral musculature. I speak from bitter experience unfortunately - my dd has extremely poor speech and it's such a difficult thing to battle with, particularly as she's got lots of things to say - but she's barely intelligible to me, never mind others. Have a look at this article for more info on oral-motor issues in children with DS and particularly lolling tongues.
(I don't want to stress you out! But this is IMO really important)

geekgirl very valid point i guess when there babies and cute an all, youve got profeesionals saying this and that and you dont know where your coming or going sometimes and its a whole new ball game, to the parents.
BUT it makes total sense with the points youve made, thanks i never thought of it like that, i guess im still a bit defensive right now over my son, i have people often asking me will your son ever be normal
and they see his tongue lolling about, and im like its not important.
but it is and as your a bit further along its very helpfull for good advise

I have no problems at all geekgirl with him needing to learn to use and control his tongue particularly to help him with his speech and thnk you are absolutely right on this front.

Actually I have seen this article on the talktools website, I think it is - have you found the professionals involved with your daughter -especially - SALT are aware of and focus on this?

It was more the assumption that children should learn to keep their tongue in so that they are the same as everyone else that irked me (even though I also understand that view point as well!)

fizzy, re. getting it recognised by professionals - NO. It's been a total nightmare to be honest and the one area where dd2 has been totally let down. Our NHS SaLT (the one we changed to when dd2 started school) is just completely crap but extremely confident which is a very bad combination. She seemed to think it was completely fine for dd2 to only be able to produce unintelligible babble and would see her once a term for 5 minutes to teach her stuff like 'under', 'in', 'on top'.
Last year I finally realised that it wasn't going anywhere and got a private SaLT on board who specialises in oral dyspraxia and TalkTools - what a difference! Dd2's speech still isn't good, but at least she is finally making progress and her specific issues are being addressed.

Oh geekgirl that is not good at all!
We have our first SALT assessment tomorrow and will be talking talktools!