Can Dental Implants Affect Speech & Pronunciation?

Whether you’re speaking in front of an audience or just making conversation around the family dinner table, broken, cracked, or missing teeth can impact your pronunciation, not just the look of your smile. If you’re considering getting dental implants, you might be concerned that they’ll continue affecting your pronunciation of certain words even after your mouth has healed. As a Denver resident, you can rest easy that dental implants can make your speaking more fluid and repair your smile.

How Dental Implants Can Improve Speech

Many patients notice significant changes to speech patterns before and after dental implants. While there may still be impairments in the weeks following the dental implant procedure and recovery period as the mouth heals, the new, artificial teeth can close gaps to help improve speech and pronunciation in the following four ways.

1. Increase Confidence in Speaking

While dental implants can significantly enhance the look and health of the teeth, they can also boost your confidence. If you have dentures that are prone to slipping and falling out, it can create awkward interactions when you’re speaking with acquaintances and friends. Since dental implants are a secure, permanent dental solution, having them firmly in place can alleviate anxiety around a pronunciation slip-up because your dentures have moved.

2. Stabilize Oral Structure

For those with missing teeth or dentures, speaking can be highly demanding on the oral muscles. Dental implants provide a long-lasting solution to secure new teeth in place and create a stable oral structure. Dental implants rely on a titanium post inserted into the jawbone that fuses to the bone through a process known as osseointegration. This new, stable foundation for the teeth aligns the top and bottom rows of teeth, eases the burden on the tongue and lips, and reduces movement or slippage that can disrupt normal speaking patterns.

3. Fill Gaps

Proper pronunciation of words depends on the connection between the tongue, teeth, roof of the mouth, and lips. Those connections can be lost for patients with missing or broken teeth, allowing excess air to escape. This can lead to slurred speech or the inability to produce sounds like ‘f’ or ‘th’. By replacing broken teeth and filling in empty spaces with dental implants in Denver, you can restore these crucial connections in the mouth and regain control of airflow.

4. Improve Tongue Placement

The tongue must rest on the teeth or use the teeth for leverage to speak clearly, articulate, and enunciate words accurately. If the teeth are jagged, or there are gaps in the top or bottom row, the tongue may not be able to easily rest on the teeth, impacting your ability to pronounce words correctly. With dental implants, the teeth are restored to a healthy alignment that allows the tongue to sit comfortably with correct placement, which can lead to improved articulation and pronunciation.

The Bottom Line

Dental implants can be a permanent solution worth considering if you suffer from dental ailments that have caused impaired speech. Since implants replace missing or broken teeth, they can naturally correct your oral structure to improve tongue placement and give you the confidence to speak in front of friends or a group, knowing that your pronunciation is accurate.

Contact Information:
Name: Sonakshi Murze
Email: [email protected]
Job Title: Manager