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Toddlers that use pacifiers more likely to suffer speech impediments

Preliminary findings by scientists suggest that preschool children who have used a pacifier for at least three years are three times more likely to have speech impediments than children who didn’t use them.

Past studies have shown however that pacifiers can halve the risk of cot death in newborn babies.

The study found that sucking thumbs also increases the risk of delayed speech development.

Scientists used a linguistic test to see whether the children’s speech was normal for their age – or whether they had an unusually low ‘talking age’ when it came to pronouncing sounds and words.

The team found children who sucked their fingers or thumbs, or who used a pacifier for at least three years, were three times more likely to have a problem with their speech.

But those who were breastfed until they were at least nine months old – and therefore not bottlefed – were less likely to have speech impediments.

Dr Clarita Barbosa of the University of Washington who led the team warned that further study with a larger group was necessary. She said: ‘These results suggest extended use of sucking outside of breast-feeding may have detrimental effects on speech development in young children,’.

‘Although results of this study provide further evidence for the benefits of longer duration of breast-feeding of infants, they should be interpreted with caution as these data are observational,’ she added.

In the study of Chilean children, 53 had used a dummy for an average of 11 months while 23 sucked their fingers.

         

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