PubMed HealthSearch

Biomedical subjects

J G Gattozzi

Publications and source records attributed to J G Gattozzi.

14 recordsLinked to original sources

Speech screening of children in the dental office.

Screening for speech problems in the dental office involves less than five minutes. Procedures include the sampling of a child's pronunciations in counting activities, word responses to pictures or questions, and conversational speech situations. Use of a normative sound development chart will help judge each child's pronunciation skills. Oral diadochokinetic testing provides a means of evaluating the maturational level of the neuromotor components of the oral structures used in support of sound production. Finally, the child's ability to modify sound production after stimulation, that is, his "stimulability," adds important data for determining the child's potential for outgrowing his problem. The screening assessment of these several characteristics of speech performance, then, provides sufficient diagnostic criteria for the dentist to recommend those children for speech therapy whose error productions will not likely improve through maturation alone. In instances where examination indicates that maturation should cause spontaneous improvement of speech, the dentist would then be able to inform the parents.

Age Factors

Variations in mandibular rest positions with and without dentures in place.

As part of a seven-year study concerning variations in denture techniques, seven radiographs were made for 52 patients. Three films of the series were made with dentures in the mouth and the patient at the vertical relation of rest; three films were made with the dentures out of the mouth and the patient at the vertical relation of rest; and one film was made with the patient at the vertical relation of occlusion. Differences were computed using an average of the three films for both groups. It was determined that the vertical relation of rest is affected by the presence of dentures in the mouth. However, this difference was not predictable, since with the dentures out, 25 per cent of the patients showed an increase in vertical relation, 59.6 per cent showed a decrease, and 15.4 per cent showed very little change.

Denture, Complete