Some Results of Speech Therapy for Children with Cleft Palate

Abstract

Little information is provided in the literature regarding the efficacy of speech therapy for children with cleft palate. Although Phillips et al. (4, 5) have reported improvement in language skills for preschool children who have received therapy, current information concerning the acquisition of articulation skills for children with clefts who receive therapy is incon— clusive and practically nonexistent. Since speech therapy was available to subjects in a previously reported study (12), an attempt was made to compare the articulation skills of children with clefts who have received speech therapy with those who have not. In the initial study, the articulation and the velopharyngeal competency of 108 Danish cleft palate patients, born in 1963-64, were assessed (12). When this sample was compared on articulation tests'to their normal peers, they were significantly poorer in articulation skills. Forty—eight percent of the subjects were judged as exhibiting velopharyngeal com-petency, 41 % were rated as having a marginal mechanism, and 11 % were rated as incompetent. Comparison of articulation scores between the normal and the competent groups indicated that cleft subjects with velopharyngeal closure were inferior in articulation skills. Procedure Each of the 108 subjects was administered a 99 item articulation test (18) and a previously described battery of measures derived to evaluate velopharyngeal competency (12). In addition, each parent was asked to fill out a brief questionnaire which consisted of the following: (1) Has your child ever received speech therapy? (2) If so, at what age did therapy begin? (3) How often did he go to therapy? (4) How many sessions of therapy has he attended? Answers of the parents were validated for each patient by checking the records at the Statens Institut for Talelidende in Denmark, which serves