Timing of Palatal Surgery and Speech Outcome

Abstract

The findings suggested that children who were less lexically advanced and younger at the time of palatal surgery exhibited better articulation and resonance outcomes at 3 years of age.

Perfil da fala de pacientes submetidos à palatoplastia primária

“…As reported in previous studies (5,7,10,11) , this age would be compatible with that recommended by the national and international protocols, which affirm that when intervention is performed at this age the chances of individuals presenting speech alterations as a result of palate cleft are reduced.…”

“…The specific scientific literature clearly establishes that palate cleft surgical repair should be conducted early, before the age of two (5,11) , especially with regards to speech (5) . In the Late Intervention Group (LIG), the mean age of participants at the time of primary palatoplasty was 11.5 years.…”

“…Clear difference between the groups was observed regarding the presence of CADs, with a trend for difference in hypernasality as well, as already mentioned in the literature (6,7,9,21) . These differences may be related to the difficulty in velopharyngeal closure, which often occurs in late palatoplasty (5,6,11) . It is worth noting that this study could not control the type of surgery and the number of surgeons involved in them because of the nature of the patients' admission to the service.…”

“…The CADs, along with hypernasality, are the most common changes in the speech of patients with palate cleft (14,18) . Speech understandability inadequacy is another commonly present alteration in cleft patients (5,6,11) . Thus, as in the literature, high occurrence of inadequacy was observed in the participants of this study, with greater severity in the LIG.…”

“…The first year of a child is of fundamental importance for the acquisition of speech and language (10) . The specific scientific literature clearly reports that surgical repair of the cleft palate should be performed early, before two years of age (5,6,11) , especially when considering speech (5,12) . The surgical treatment aims to provide adequate velopharyngeal function, which is essential in early childhood (6) .…”