Oral Language Skills of Adult Cleft Palate Speakers

Abstract

Cleft palate children are reported (24, 28, 32, 33, 34) to be delayed in language development, however, the language status of adults with cleft palate has not been described (35). To date, investigations of adult cleft palate speakers have been confined to voice and articulation skills. There is evidence (10, 24, 25) to indicate that in cleft palate children there is a relationship between articulation and language skills. According to Morris (24), speakers with defective articulation may not talk as much or know as many words as speakers with less defective articulation. Similar observa— tions have been reported by Westlake and Rutherford (45) and Faircloth and Faircloth (10). McWilliams (20), on the other hand, has indicated that cleft palate children have problems with expressive encoding regardless of whether speech is normal or defective. Several studies (7, 18, 19, 36, 42) have demonstrated that adult cleft palate speakers are deficient in articu-latory skills. Counihan ('7), for example, reported that twenty percent of his adolescent and adult cleft palate subjects presented poorer articulation skills than the average three year old normal child, and that more than half were below the average five year old level. The research on language skills in cleft palate children and articulation proficiency in adult cleft palate speakers would seem to suggest that in adults: (a) articulation proficiency and /or intelligibility may be related to language skills, and (b) language skills of cleft palate speakers may differ from those of normal speakers. The validity of these concepts, however, has not been investigated. The purpose of this study was two fold: (1) to investigate selected oral language skills in cleft palate and normal adult speakers, and (2) to deter— mine the relationship between oral language skills and intelligibility in adult normal and cleft palate speakers. Method SUBJECTs. The experimental group consisted of twenty subjects with congenital cleft palate, seven males and thirteen females, ranging from Dr. Pannbacker is associate Professor, Speech and Hearing Clinic, Texas We-man'