Parental perception vs. professional assessment of speech changes following premature loss of maxillary primary incisors.

Purpose: This study's purpose was to compare parental perceptions of children's speech changes with a professional speech assessment following premature extractions of maxillary primary incisors (PEMPI).

Methods: Healthy 5- to 6-year-olds, with no cognitive and speech delay and who received PEMPI between the ages of 2 and 4 years old at a university-based clinic, were recruited for the study. First, their parents took part in a telephone interview regarding their perceptions of speech changes following the extractions. The children were then invited to undergo individual speech evaluations by a certified speech and language pathologist.

Results: Of 204 patients identified from the database, 57 parental interviews were completed. Sixty percent (34) felt their children sounded different following extractions, and 65% (37) reported difficulty with pronunciation of the "s" sound. For children who were perceived by their parents to sound different, 46% had problems pronouncing words with the letters s and z. For parents who did not perceive speech changes, none of the children had problems with s and z as determined by the professionally conduced speech evaluations (Fisher exact test P=.02).

Conclusions: Children who undergo premature extractions of maxillary primary incisors show problems articulating words containing s and z, and there is an agreement between parental perceptions and actual disarticulations detected from a professional assessment.