Drooling & Language Development

Babies develop their language skills very quickly in the first months and years of life. They also drool, sometimes in what may seem prodigious amounts. Parents and caregivers can reference a few simple facts to determine whether their child's language development and drooling are both interconnected and normal.

Normalcy

• The amount that a baby drools is impacted by multiple factors, such as the ability to control the muscles of the mouth, tongue and face. In the first months after birth, these muscles are weak. Until these muscles are more developed, babies inevitably will have saliva run down their chins. Therefore, some drooling by babies is completely normal and not a predictor of successful or unsuccessful language development.

Teething

• Babies often drool more when they are cutting a tooth, and even in the months prior to the cutting of the tooth as it travels upward in the gum. This is because they may keep their mouths open to avoid pressing against painful gums, chew on fingers to self-comfort or try to adjust their tongue to alleviate feelings of uncomfortableness associated with the new tooth in the mouth. However, new teeth also allow for the ability to make different language sounds. The age when babies start experimenting with syllable sounds is 6 months, which is also around the time when teeth start to come in. It thus may appear that the baby has a problem with language because drooling accompanies the new words, but in reality the baby is drooling because it's uncomfortable, not because it is having a problem communicating.

Speech Delay

• Drooling in babies occasionally can signal a problem with oromotor (mouth muscle) function. Sometimes these dysfunctions relate to other conditions such as cerebral palsy. As a consequence of the lack of muscle control, the baby is unable to keep fluid in the mouth. The same muscles that keep saliva in the mouth also function in speech, so drooling can be an indication that the baby does not have the muscle strength to develop speech skills normally. However, if speech is delayed, this in no way means that the baby is unable to comprehend language. Babies may even understand words they cannot say.

Testing

• If your child doesn't seem to be developing a vocabulary at the normal rate and is drooling in large amounts, it is good to remember that some children are perfectly capable of speech production. They opt not to speak in a condition known as selective mutism. You may have a professional speech pathologist test your child to determine whether or not the problem is physical or behavioral.

Treatment

• If your child does have a physical condition that results in drooling and slowed language development (e.g., cleft lip or cleft palate), then your child's doctor or speech pathologist can help your child through physical therapy or surgical treatments that may help. If the problem is more behavioral, encourage your child to speak more by speaking to them often at home, reading and naming objects. You can deal with the drooling by keeping burp cloths handy and having your baby wear a bib.