It was a wonderful surprise for Meredith Motz, of Texas, when she heard her 5-year-old son Mason speak clearly for the first time following a life-changing trip to Kidstown Dental in April 2017.
“Momma, I’m hungry,” Mason told Motz, after the dentist visit that evening.
Motz was shocked as Mason could barely utter a complete sentence ever since he started talking.
Rather than saying “Daddy,” he would say “Da.”
“The beginning of words not the end of words. Really poor enunciation,” Motz told CBS News.
“My husband and I were the only ones that could understand him,” Motz told New York Times.
Mason had trouble communicating. In addition, he had sleeping and breathing issues, as well as difficulties eating and swallowing food.
“Sleeping was always stressful. He would stop breathing,” Motz told InsideEdition.com.
“Every single meal we would have to remove something that was choking him.”
To solve his speech problem, Motz brought Mason to many medical professionals. The boy has been in speech therapy ever since he was 1 year old.
Motz and her husband, Dalan, thought Mason’s speech delay was due to Sotos syndrome—a condition marked by distinctive facial features, overgrowth in childhood, and learning disabilities or delayed development.
“Since birth, he’s had delays and issues,” Motz said.
The parents also believed Mason became mostly nonverbal as a consequence of a brain aneurysm he had back when he was 10 days old.
But they were wrong.
So what exactly caused Mason to be mostly nonverbal, and how did pediatric dentist Dr. Amy Luedemann-Lazar cure Mason’s speech problem?
While Dr. Luedemann-Lazar was working on Mason’s cavities, she noticed something odd.
She discovered the band of tissue under Mason’s tongue was unusually short. It was connected close to the tip of his tongue, leaving him biologically tongue-tied.
“When you’re developing (in utero), your tongue is part of the floor of your mouth,” Dr. Luedemann-Lazar said. “A tongue-tie is an incomplete separation.”
The tongue-tie condition “really drives the development of your face, nose and airways,” she told KHOU-TV.
After seeking permission from Mason’s parents, she used a non-invasive laser to cut the tissue under Mason’s tongue.
“He had been in speech therapy for years and no one had ever checked under his tongue,” Motz said.
It was a simple 30-second procedure, but the result created a miracle in Mason’s life.
The overjoyed mother explained, “Within 12 hours, he was talking and it was amazing.”
Having his tied tongue corrected, Mason no longer has difficulties eating and sleeping.
After this miraculous procedure, Mason is a lot different.
“He’s got a vocabulary now. He’s able to put together letters and words,” Motz told USA Today.
What’s more, Mason is performing much better at school as he gets enough sleep.“He really likes going to school,“ Motz said. ”He loves to dress up and he loves to dance. You can have conversations with him. He sings songs.”
He is also doing well in speech therapy and has become quite a chatterbox.
She “now looks at Mason as a whole person.”
Motz’s advice to parents is to trust your gut, as no one understands your child better than you do.
“If you think there’s something going on, find a doctor that will respect your opinion,” she said.
She urged parents to seek different opinions.
We’re so happy for Mason and his family! Now that Mason is no longer tongue-tied, he should be able to tackle tongue twisters with renewed confidence!
