Cleft Lip and Palate Care in the United Kingdom—The Clinical Standards Advisory Group (CSAG) Study. Part 3: Speech Outcomes

Abstract

Nineteen percent of 5-year-olds and 4% of 12-year-olds were judged to be impossible to understand or just intelligible to strangers. Thirty-four percent of 5-year-olds and 17% of 12-year-olds had at least one serious error of consonant production. Eighteen percent of 5-year-olds and 12-year-olds had consistent hypernasality of mild, moderate, or severe degree. Approximately two-thirds of both age groups had undergone speech therapy.

Improvement of quality of speech in patients with velo-pharyngeal insufficiency corrected using a buccinator myomucosal flap

“…The development of normal speech is among the most important goals. It is well recognised that patients with uncorrected cleft palate, and some with corrected cleft palates have severely distorted speech [2].…”

“…The reduction of hypernasality is viewed as an important speech outcome. The need for secondary surgery is indicated to improve speech quality [2].…”

“…Velopharyngeal insufficiency (VPI) results in hypernasality, nasal emission and poor speech quality, and nasal regurgitation during feeding [1,2]. Structural, functional, mechanical and phoneme specific abnormalities are the causes for VPI.…”

“…The commonest structural defect causing VPI is the oro-facial clefts involving the palate. VPI is seen in about 20% to 30% of individuals who have undergone primary palatoplasty and in 5% to 10% of patients with a submucous cleft palate [1][2][3].…”

Automatically evaluated degree of intelligibility of children with different cleft type from preschool and elementary school measured by automatic speech recognition

“…Speech disorders are often described for children with clefts including the palate and might lead to diminished intelligibility of speech. In more than 50% of children with unilateral cleft lip and palate, intelligibility was rated as not normal in a study by Sell et al [7].…”