Effects on Visibility of A Prepalatal Cleft on The Evaluation of Speech

Abstract

Sixty speech pathology students participated in a double—blind factorial experiment to assess the impact of a distorted lip and hares on the evaluation of various speech dimensions. The subjects were randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups. All Ss read identical case studies about a child born with a cleft. One of two photographs was attached to each case study. One was an accurate photograph of a girl with post-operative disfigurement. The second was of the same girl, but it had been retouched to eliminate the disfigurement. Half of the Ss in each photograph condition listened to a recording of a normal speaker while the other half of the Ss listened to a nasal speaker. The results of various analyses indicated that a visible disfigurement significantly affected the Ss evaluation of nasal speech, increasing their perception of nasality and of the need for speech therapy. Judgments concerning nasal resonance, particularly in cleft palate populations , seem to be especially difficult to make. Spriestersbach (1955) noted the problems involved in making nasality assessments which were not influenced by' other speech dimensions and deviations. There are a number of speech parameters which readily confound the process of assessing nasality in cleft palate speech. One of these factors is articulation; there is evidence that defectiveness of articulation is positively correlated with perceptions of nasality (McWilliams, 1954; Spriestersbach, 1955; Van Hattum, 1958; Shames, et al., 1960). Studies have also suggested negative correlations between the intensity level of phonation and nasality perception (Hess, 1955) and between pitch variation and nasality assessments (Spriestersbach, 1955). Phonetic contexts , too, are related to perception of nasality in speech. Many authors (Carney and Morris, 1971; Andrews and Rutherford, 1972; Moore and Som-mers, 1973) have indicated that, in low vowel environments, as opposed to high vowel contexts, nasality is perceived to be diminished. Although the correlates of nasality are quite varied, there is perhaps another factor which might have an important effect on nasality judgments. This factor is the appearance of the speaker. The role of appearance as an expectancy determinant in impression formation was investigated by Clifford and Walster (1972). They reported that attractive children were perceived by teachers as being more intelligent and better adjusted socially than were less attractive children. Ross and Salvia (1975) reported that teachers' recommendations for special class placement and judgments about future social and academic develop-Ms. Podol is affiliated with the State College, Pennsylvania, Area School District and Dr. Salvia is affiliated with