It is the responsibility of the dentist to fabricate a denture that is fully functional and perfectly esthetic. One prime oral function that has always been overlooked in this regard is speech. It has been thought that speech will follow mere replacement of teeth and that it is the patient's duty to fine tune this function with practice. Phonetics, esthetics, function and comfort form the foundation of a successful prosthodontic treatment. Accurate approximation of palatal contours of a maxillary complete denture to a patient's tongue can improve speech intelligibility, if other factors such as tooth position, occlusal plane and occlusal vertical dimension are satisfactory. Customizing palatal contours of a maxillary complete denture can be accomplished by using tissue-conditioning material, which provides sufficient working time for a patient to pronounce a series of sibilant sounds while recording dynamic impression of the tongue. This article describes a technique of obtaining palatogram and customizing palatal contours of a maxillary complete denture with autopolymerizing acrylic resin to improve the intelligibility of speech.
Keywords: Complete denture; palate; palatogram; phonetics; sounds; speech.