Sucking Thumb for long may hinder Speech Development

PACIFIER, baby bottle or thumb sucking may hamper a child’s speech development if the habit goes on too long, says a new study. The children were more likely to have difficulty producing certain word sounds and to simplify their pronunciation.

A team led by Clarita Barbosa from Corporation de Rehabilitation Club De Le ones Crz Del Sur in Patagonia, Chile, conducted the study with University of Washington (UW) Multidisciplinary International Research Training (MIRT).

Looking at 128 children aged three to five years, researchers gathered parents’ reports of each child’s sucking behavior during infancy and evaluated their speech.

They found that delay in giving a baby bottle until the child was at least nine month old reduced the risk of their developing speech disorders, while children who sucked their fingers for over three years, were three times more likely to develop speech problems.