Speech intelligibility of patients with cleft lip and palate after placement of speech prosthesis.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:

To evaluate the speech intelligibility of patients with clefts before and after placement of a speech prosthesis.

DESIGN:

Cross-sectional.

SETTING:

Hospital for Rehabilitation of Craniofacial Anomalies, University of São Paulo (HRAC/USP), Bauru, Brazil.

PATIENTS:

Twenty-seven patients with unoperated cleft palate or operated cleft palate presenting with velopharyngeal insufficiency (VPI) after primary palatoplasty, treated with speech prosthesis, aged 8 to 63 years.

INTERVENTIONS:

Patients were fitted with palatopharyngeal obturators or pharyngeal bulbs, suitable to their dental needs. Five speech-language pathologists blindly evaluated speech samples of the patients with and without the prosthesis.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:

Classification of speech samples according to a scoring system developed for speech intelligibility problems: 1 (normal), 2 (mild), 3 (mild to moderate), 4 (moderate), 5 (moderate to severe), and 6 (severe). Results were evaluated by the calculation of means of all judges for each patient in both situations.

RESULTS:

The judges presented significant agreement (W=.789, p<.01). Speech intelligibility was significantly better after placement of the prosthesis for both unoperated patients (Z=1.93, p=.02) and operated patients with VPI after primary palatoplasty (Z=1.78, p=.03).

CONCLUSIONS:

Speech intelligibility may be improved by rehabilitation of patients with cleft palate using a speech prosthesis. Speech therapy is needed to eliminate any compensatory articulation productions developed prior to prosthetic management.

• Authors: João Henrique Nogueira Pinto, Gisele da Silva Dalben, Maria Inês Pegoraro-Krook
• Journal: The Cleft palate-craniofacial journal : official publication of the American Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Association (Cleft Palate Craniofac J) Vol. 44 Issue 6 Pg. 635-41 (Nov 2007) ISSN: 1055-6656 [Print] United States
• PMID: 18177184 (Publication Type: Journal Article)

Topics

• Adolescent
• Adult
• Child
• Cleft Lip (physiopathology, therapy)
• Cleft Palate (physiopathology, therapy)
• Cross-Sectional Studies
• Female
• Humans
• Male
• Middle Aged
• Observer Variation
• Palatal Obturators
• Speech Intelligibility
• Statistics, Nonparametric
• Velopharyngeal Insufficiency (physiopathology, therapy)