After a trip to the dentist, six-year-old Mason spoke clearly for the first time.

Mason Motz’s parents had just about given up on hopes of being able to have ordinary conversations with their six-year-old son.

The Texas boy had been diagnosed with Sotos Syndrome, a genetic disorder that results in learning disabilities, and had also suffered a brain aneurysm at 10 days old.

But this still didn’t completely explain why their school-aged son could barely speak.

“Nothing was really working,” his mum Meredith told Inside Edition. “He had probably a five-word vocabulary, and we were looking at alternative means of communication.”

Then, at an ordinary dentist check-up in April 2017 (which they’d had difficulty getting Mason to settle down for at that point) their world completely changed. Within hours of leaving the office, their son was speaking complete sentences.

As Mason’s dad and mum learned that day, Mason had been suffering from tongue tie since birth – a condition where the tongue does not separate properly from the bottom of the mouth in-utero and results in restricted tongue movement.

It was a condition that doctors and speech specialists the family had seen since Mason was born had failed to notice.

But dentist Dr Amy Ludeman-Lazar spotted the tongue tie, and immediately asked Mason’s parents if she could perform the 10-second procedure to split the boy’s tongue from his mouth using a laser.

After a quick Google search, they agreed, and were shocked by the results.

“We took him home that evening, and then he started talking about, ‘I’m hungry, I’m thirsty. Can we watch a movie?’,” Meredith said.

“Like, blowing our minds with these full sentences for the first time, within seven or eight hours of coming home.”

Why Mason’s vocabulary – formerly that of a one-year-old – had more than doubled in less than a day, the little boy still had a lot of catching up to do.

He now speaks at a four-year-old level, but experts have told Meredith he will be speaking at the same level as his peers by the time he’s 13 years old, the New York Times reports.

The procedure also improved Mason’s sleeping and allowed him to eat without regularly choking.

For Meredith, the takeaway is that parents should listen to their “gut instincts” when it comes to their child’s health.

“If you think that something is going on, doctors may tell you one thing but keep looking and keep trying, because you’re usually right. You know your child best.”

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