By: Mary Hardin-Jones, Kathy Chapman, and Nancy Scherer

A Little History Info……. The first study of the pre-surgery and pre- linguistic speech characteristics of babies with cleft palate was carried out in the 1960’s. It was not until 20 years later that research focused in on this early stage of development began to appear in literature.

Research Info…… Research have found that even before palates are closed some babies are attempting to produce stop consonants. These are the same babies that have better speech and language outcomes later. (?) Better speech outcome with early palatal surgery. Other considerations for palatal surgery

Surgical considerations

What to Work On Prior to surgical repair- sounds that are least affected by cleft Postpalatal surgery- decrease in frequency and variety of child’s vocalizations

What Can SLP’s Do SLP’s can do much to lessen the impact of cleft on communication skills: Consonant inventory Vocabulary Oral Airflow

Increasing consonant inventories Lack of growth in phonetic inventory Few, if any pressure consonants Eliminate glottal stops Reintroduce vowels

Increasing inventory & Vocabulary Simultaneously Combining goals Using simple syllable structure Naturalistic methods Focused stimulation Enhanced Milieu Training (EMT)

Increasing Oral Airflow Awareness of oral airflow Toys Bubbles Instruments

Cleft Palate Before & After