An increasing number of children are experiencing speech development issues, according to experts, and some parents feel masking is making it harder to correct the problem for kids.

Fourth-grader Gabriella Fiori works hard on improving her articulation and speech. She practices articulation exercises at home with her mom after school.

“When I look in the mirror, I can see how I look, and so I can fix it whenever, like, I think I'm pronouncing it wrong,” Fiori said.

She has speech therapy at school, but she also works hard at home with her family to improve how she talks.

“When I say [certain words], the air that I make using to say the word, it goes out the side, so it sounds weird. That's what my speech teacher taught me. So then, when I squeeze my face, it goes out the front. And so then it sounds correct.”

Fiori has games and challenges she does to master her articulation. By doing the extra work, she's hoping to catch up on the time she's lost because of social distancing and masks.

"My speech teacher can’t see what I'm saying if I, like, if I wear the mask and how it looks," Fiori said. "So if, like, she thinks it sounds good, but it doesn't look good, it might, like, affect me in the future, and I might not actually be saying it right."

Jill Fiori is Gabriella Fiori's mother.

“A big part of her speech therapy is really her following her teacher's lips, the tongue, movement, where the teeth is, where to blow out the air," Jill Fiori said. "And with a mask, it's just not possible."

The Fiori family is not alone.

Susan Scott, speech team supervisor at Liberty Post, said the need for speech pathology continues to increase, and they have been creative throughout the pandemic.

“We realized that we were missing a lot of facial cues that we could give the children, and we were putting a lot of effort into nonverbals, affect, to really provide some of that," she said. "But also the need for a better face device came into play. So things that would show the face a little bit more. Movement usually encourages more vocalizations."

Scott tells families movement and singing are excellent tools to encourage more vocalization. She adds that at every age, speech development is happening, but the first year of life is the most crucial.

“Either be on the floor up at eye level, use that big affect and really show them a wider range of what they may be missing when they're masking,” Scott said.

As for Gabriella Fiori and her family, the concerns are immediate as well as long-term on how her speech development is impacted by masking.

“If I wanna like, get a job, they might not like how I talk, and I might not get it,” she said. “I just don't want people to not understand what she has to say, because she's got a lot to say,” Jill Fiori added.

Gov. Kathy Hochul said recently that she will look at data and review masking in schools after winter break.

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