There are two cases of short tongue, one is the tongue congenital small tongue, this rare, will certainly affect the speech; the second is the tongue tether is too short, commonly known as the tongue tendon, is the child open mouth cocked tongue in the tongue and the bottom of the mouth between a thin strip of tissue, similar to the duck palm between the two toes of the flesh membrane. In a normal newborn, the tongue tie extends to or near the tip of the tongue. During the development of the tongue, the ligament gradually retracts toward the root of the tongue. However, in cases of abnormal development, the tongue tether does not recede or does not recede sufficiently, and the tongue tether becomes too short. The tongue tip is “W”-shaped, and when the mouth is opened, the tip of the tongue cannot be upturned or licked to reach the upper gums, and the tongue cannot be rolled upward. In order to overcome the traction of the tongue tether, the child incorrectly stretches the tongue between the upper and lower teeth or compensates by lifting the back of the tongue, thus forming an abnormal articulation pattern and failing to produce tongue-palatal and tongue-rolling sounds correctly. This is the main reason why the short tongue ligament leads to the inability to pronounce the root (g, k, h), front (z, c, s), tip (d, t, n), surface (j, q, x), and back (zh, ch, sh, r) of the tongue. Secondly, when pronouncing vowels, children with short tongue ligament often use a fixed front low position of the tongue, and because the direction of airflow through the vocal folds into the mouth changes, when pronouncing /a/ and /u/ vowels, the tongue is in the front position of the tongue and the back high position of the tongue respectively. The main manifestation of the short tongue tie affects the pronunciation of “4” and “10”, and the pronunciation of “Gong” as “Dong The short lingual ligament affects the pronunciation of “4” and “10”, “male” as “east”, “knife” as “high” and “pants” as “rabbit”. However, not all children with short tongue ligament will have slurred speech, which means that not all children with short tongue ligament need surgery. You can take your child to a pediatric rehabilitation or dentistry office for consultation. If tongue tie shearing is needed, it is usually appropriate to do it between the ages of 1 and 3 years old, and the timing of the surgery depends on the severity of each child. If the child is weak in breastfeeding and the tongue cannot wrap around the pacifier, which affects feeding, or if the child has recurrent ulcers at the tongue tie during teething, then surgery is recommended; if the tongue tie is still attached to the tip of the tongue at 8 months to 1 year of age and shows no signs of retraction, surgery is recommended before 1 year of age; if the tongue tie is a little short but not attached to the tip of the tongue and the tongue can partially stick out of the mouth, then it can be observed. If the tongue tie is a little short but not attached to the tip of the tongue and the tongue can be partially extended out of the mouth, then it can be observed. If there is no improvement until the age of 3, and the tip of the tongue is still in a forked or “w” shape when extending the tongue, and the pronunciation is unclear, surgery is recommended, followed by speech training; if it is found after the age of 3, surgery is recommended as soon as possible; if the tongue tie is short but does not affect the pronunciation, surgery can be chosen without surgery. Surgery before the age of 1 does not affect the child’s learning of pronunciation and does not require special training for dysarthria. For children who have surgery after the age of 2 or 3, there is not much improvement after the surgery and they need to do further phonetic training to correct the bad pronunciation habits. For children with short lingual ligament causing speech disorders, the best correction method is surgery plus dysarthria training, supplemented by tongue exercises. There are several ways to classify the short tongue ligament according to the difference of sucking function, restricted movement, the shape of the tongue during movement, the distance from the attachment point of the tongue ligament to the tip of the tongue, the shape of the tongue ligament, etc. The following is the simplest and most memorable method: Under the premise that the patient opens the mouth fully, degree I The tip of the tongue cannot reach the palate when extending the tongue; degree II The tip of the tongue can only reach the occlusal plane or a little higher; degree III The tip of the tongue cannot be lifted up.