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Objective: Assessment of the hypothesized correlation between the Chinese Velopharyngeal Insufficiency (VPI) Effects on Life Outcomes (VELO) instrument and measured speech parameters. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in the Oral Clefts Center of West China Hospital of Stomatology between January 2019 and December 2019. Speech parameters including speech intelligibility deficit, VPI severity, VP gap, and need for speech therapy were evaluated by speech-language pathologists. All patients and their parents completed the VELO instrument. The correlation between aforementioned speech parameters and VELO scores was examined utilizing Spearman correlation coefficients. The reliability of VELO test-retest and parent proxy assessment was estimated utilizing intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC). A receiver operating characteristic curve was used to calculate the cutoff VELO score. Results: One hundred and forty patients with their parents were enrolled. The mean age was 12.58 ± 3.72 years. Both parent and youth VELO total and domain scores recorded moderate to strong correlations with all speech parameters (r > À.40, P < .001) except the swallowing domain. Most VELO domain items have shown significant correlations with at least one speech parameter. Moreover, the scales of all speech parameters showed different VELO scores (P < .001). The ICC reported testretest correlation >.73 in all domains, and parent proxy correlation >.63 in most domains except the emotional and perception domains. The cutoff VELO score was 79.04 in parent version and 85.77 in youth version. Conclusions:The correlations between VELO scores and measured speech parameters have provided evidence for test-retest and parent proxy reliability and criterion

Objective To explore the incidence of postoperative complications and investigate the impact of preselected factors on functional and quality of life outcomes following the Sommerlad–Furlow modified palatoplasty technique. Study Design Retrospective cohort. Methods A total of 429 patients with cleft palate, who received Sommerlad–Furlow modified technique between 2011–2017 were enrolled. The postoperative complications including oronasal fistula (ONF), velopharyngeal insufficiency (VPI), and inadequate quality of life (QOL) were collected. Data of preselected factors including gender, age at palatoplasty, cleft type, cleft width, palatal width, pharyngeal cavity depth, and operation duration were also collected. Results Among 429 patients, 40.1% were males whereas 59.9% were females. The mean age at palatoplasty was 1.23 ± 0.69 (0.42–4) years, and the average cleft width was 10.15 ± 2.95 (4–27) mm. The cleft types had recorded rates of about 6.8%, 69.5%, 17.7%, and 6.1% of Veau I, II, III, and IV, respectively. The overall incidence rates of ONF, VPI, and inadequate QOL were 2.3%, 19.4%, and 31.3%, respectively. In both the univariate and multivariate analyses, the cleft type was significantly implicated in ONF formation (p = 0.023 and 0.032, respectively) whereas the velopharyngeal function was impacted by the palatoplasty age (p ˂ 0.001). The receiver operating characteristic curve indicated that age of palatoplasty ≥1.3 years (area under the curve = 0.611, p = 0.002) was the cutoff value for predicting the incidence of VPI. Conclusions The Sommerlad–Furlow modified technique appears to have appropriate postoperative outcomes, even in the wide cleft palate. The older age at palatoplasty has a major impact on the overall postoperative outcomes. Level of Evidence 4 Laryngoscope, 133:822–829, 2023