The Effect of Mandibular Nerve Block Upon the Speech of Four-Year-Old Boys

Abstract

The effects of bilateral mandibular nerve blocks on the speech of seven four-year-old boys were judged by transcribers. The children repeated 66 sentences heavily weighted with consonant clusters known to be vulnerable to nerve block distortion. Although all the children reported loss of sensation, there was variation in speech effect. The effect was limited to less than 20% of the utterances but the distortions were further from target than those of adults previously studied. It is hypothesized that the nerve block interrupts the sensation of touch, a sensation that arises in time after the speech motor commands and has little importance in on-going monitoring of learned speech patterns. The slurring of speech which does result from the block is attributed to absorption of the anaesthetic by the blood stream.