Visual Training and Correction of Articulation Disorders by Use of Dynamic Palatography

1986 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 226-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken-Ichi Michi ◽  
Noriko Suzuki ◽  
Yukari Yamashita ◽  
Satoko Imai

The dynamic palatograph is an electrical apparatus that generates a visual display of constantly changing palatolingual contact as a function of time, using an artificial palatal plate with affixed electrodes. This paper describes a technique of speech therapy incorporating dynamic palatography for a cleft palate patient. The patient, a 6-year-old Japanese girl with a repaired unilateral cleft lip and palate, had been judged to demonstrate articulation disorders involving contact of the tongue with the hard palate or alveolus following surgical improvement of velopharyngeal function. Prior to therapy the tongue tended to contact the hard palate more posteriorly than normal. After therapy with the dynamic palatograph, palatolingual contact was normal in comparison with average speakers. Our findings suggest that the facility of constant visual indication of tongue posture to the clinician and patient during corrective speech therapy using dynamic palatography may expedite results with cleft palate patients in the speech clinic when implemented in a carefully structured treatment plan.

2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 458-469
Author(s):  
Inger Lundeborg Hammarström ◽  
Jill Nyberg ◽  
Suvi Alaluusua ◽  
Jorma Rautio ◽  
Erik Neovius ◽  
...  

Objective: To investigate in-depth speech results in the Scandcleft Trial 2 with comparisons between surgical protocols and centers and with benchmarks from peers without cleft palate. Design: A prospective randomized clinical trial. Setting: Two Swedish and one Finnish Cleft Palate center. Participants: One hundred twelve participants were 5-years-old born with unilateral cleft lip and palate randomized to either lip repair and soft palate closure at 4 months and hard palate closure at 12 months or lip repair at 3 to 4 months (Arm A), or a closure of both the soft and hard palate at 12 months (Arm C). Main Outcome Measures: A composite measure dichotomized into velopharyngeal competency (VPC) or velopharyngeal incompetency (VPI), overall assessment of velopharyngeal function (VPC-Rate), percentage of consonants correct (PCC score), and consonant errors. In addition, number of speech therapy visits, average hearing thresholds, and secondary surgeries were documented to assess burden of treatment. Results: Across the trial, 53.5% demonstrated VPC and 46.5% VPI with no significant differences between arms or centers. In total, 27% reached age-appropriate PCC scores with no statistically significant difference between the arms. The Finnish center had significantly higher PCC scores, the Swedish centers had higher percentages of oral consonant errors. Number of speech therapy visits was significantly higher in the Finnish center. Conclusion: At age 5, poor speech outcomes with some differences between participating centers were seen but could not be attributed to surgical protocol. As one center had very few participants, the results from that center should be interpreted with caution.


2020 ◽  
pp. 105566562098024
Author(s):  
Kim Bettens ◽  
Laura Bruneel ◽  
Cassandra Alighieri ◽  
Daniel Sseremba ◽  
Duncan Musasizib ◽  
...  

Objective: To provide speech outcomes of English-speaking Ugandan patients with a cleft palate with or without cleft lip (CP±L). Design: Prospective case–control study. Setting: Referral hospital for patients with cleft lip and palate in Uganda. Participants: Twenty-four English-speaking Ugandan children with a CP±L (15 boys, 9 girls, mean 8.4 years) who received palatal closure prior to 6 months of age and an age- and gender-matched control group of Ugandan children without cleft palate. Interventions: Comparison of speech outcomes of the patient and control group. Main Outcome Measures: Perceptual speech outcomes including articulation, resonance, speech understandability and acceptability, and velopharyngeal composite score (VPC-sum). Information regarding speech therapy, fistula rate, and secondary surgery. Results: Normal speech understandability was observed in 42% of the patients, and 38% were judged with normal speech acceptability. Only 16% showed compensatory articulation. Acceptable resonance was found in 71%, and 75% of the patients were judged perceptually to present with competent velopharyngeal function based on the VPC-sum. Additional speech intervention was recommended in 25% of the patients. Statistically significant differences for all these variables were still observed with the control children ( P < .05). Conclusions: Overall, acceptable speech outcomes were found after early primary palatal closure. Comparable or even better results were found in comparison with international benchmarks, especially regarding the presence of compensatory articulation. Whether this approach is transferable to Western countries is the subject for further research.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ravi K. Garg ◽  
Delora L Mount

Cleft lip and palate are common congenital anomalies with significant implications for feeding, swallowing, and speech. If a cleft palate goes unrepaired, a child will have difficulty distinguishing nasal and oral sounds. Even following cleft palate repair, approximately 20 to 30% of nonsyndromic children have persistent hypernasal speech. This often occurs due to velopharyngeal dysfunction (VPD), a term describing failure of the soft palate and pharyngeal walls to seal the nasopharynx from the oropharynx during oral consonant production. The gold standard for diagnosis is perceptual examination by a trained speech pathologist, although additional diagnostic tools such as nasendoscopy are often used. Treatment options for VPD range from speech therapy to revision palatoplasty, sphincter pharyngoplasty, pharyngeal flap, and pharyngeal wall augmentation. Palatal prosthetics may also be considered for children who are not surgical candidates. Further research is needed to improve selection of diagnostic and treatment interventions and optimize speech outcomes for children with a history of oral cleft. This review contains 1 figure, 3 videos, and 58 references.  Key words: Cleft lip and palate, hypernasal resonance, levator veli palatine, nasal emission, nasendoscopy, palatoplasty, pharyngeal flap, posterior pharyngeal wall augmentation, sphincter pharyngoplasty, velopharyngeal dysfunction


2003 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 311-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Puneet Batra ◽  
Ritu Duggal ◽  
Hari Parkash

Cleft lip with or without cleft palate (CL/CP) is one of the most common structural birth defects, with treatment including multiple surgeries, speech therapy, and dental and orthodontic treatments over the first 18 years of life. Providing care for these patients and families includes educating patients and parents about the genetics of CL/CP, as well as meeting the immediate medical needs.Attempts at identifying susceptibility loci via family and case-control studies have proved inconsistent. It is likely that initial predictions of the complex interactions involved in facial development were underestimated. The candidate gene list for CL/P is getting longer and the need for an impartial, systematic screening technique, to implicate or refute the inclusion of particular loci, is apparent. So we are faced with the question "Can this complex trait be too complex?"The aim of this review is to make the dentist aware of the differences between syndromic and non-syndromic cleft as well as understanding the etiological variation in cleft lip with and without cleft palate. This will aid the dentist in diagnosis and give proper genetic counseling to parents and patients of cleft lip and palate.


2007 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 635-641 ◽  
Author(s):  
João Henrique Nogueira Pinto ◽  
Giseleda Silva Dalben ◽  
Maria Inês Pegoraro-Krook

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.


2000 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Willadsen ◽  
Hans Enemark

Objective This study examined the prelinguistic contoid (consonant-like) inventories of 14 children with unilateral cleft lip and palate (C-UCLP) at 13 months of age. The children had received primary veloplasty at 7 months of age and closure of the hard palate was performed at 3–5 years. The results of this investigation were compared to results previously reported for 19 children with cleft palate and 19 noncleft children at the age of 13 months. The children with clefts in that study received a two-stage palatal surgery. This surgical procedure was formerly used at our center and included closure of the lip and hard palate at 3 months of age and soft palate closure at 22 months of age. Design Retrospective study. Setting The participants were videorecorded in their homes during play with their mothers. The videotapes were transcribed independently by three trained speech pathologists. Patients Fourteen consecutive patients born with C-UCLP and no known mental retardation or associated syndromes served as subjects. Results The children who received delayed closure of the hard palate demonstrated a significantly richer variety of contoids in their prespeech vocalizations than the cleft children in the comparison group. Both groups of subjects with clefts had significantly fewer plosives in their contoid inventory than the noncleft group, and there was no difference regarding place of articulation between the group that received delayed closure of the hard palate and the noncleft group.


2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (10) ◽  
pp. 1276-1286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Willadsen ◽  
Anette Lohmander ◽  
Christina Persson ◽  
Maria Boers ◽  
Mia Kisling-Møller ◽  
...  

Objective: To compare in-depth speech results in Scandcleft Trial 1 as well as reference data from peers without cleft palate (CP). Design: A prospective randomized clinical trial. Setting: A Danish and a Swedish CP center. Participants: 143 of 148 randomized 5-year-olds with unilateral cleft lip and palate. All received lip and velum closure at 4 months, and hard palate closure at 12 months (arm A) or 36 months (arm B). Main Outcome Measures: A composite measure based on velopharyngeal competence (VPC) or velopharyngeal incompetence (VPI), an overall assessment of VPC from connected speech (VPC-Rate), Percentage of Consonants Correct (PCC-score), and consonant errors. Speech therapy visits, average hearing thresholds, and secondary pharyngeal surgeries documented burden of treatment. Results: Across the trial, 61.5% demonstrated VPC and 38.5% VPI. Twenty-two percent of participants achieved age appropriate PCC-scores. There were no statistically significant differences between arms or centers for these measures. In the Danish center, arm B: achieved lower PCC-scores ( P = .01); obtained PCC-scores without s-errors below 79% ( P = .002); produced ≥3 active oral cleft speech characteristics ( P = .004) than arm A. In both centers, arm B attended more speech visits. Conclusions: At age 5, differences between centers and treatment arms were not statistically significant for VPC/VPI, but consonant proficiency differed between treatment arms in the Danish center. Poor speech outcomes were seen for both treatment arms. Variations between centers were observed. As the Swedish center had few participants, intercenter comparisons should be interpreted with caution.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seunghee Ha ◽  
Kyung S. Koh ◽  
Heewon Moon ◽  
Seungeun Jung ◽  
Tae Suk Oh

This study presents clinical outcomes of primary cleft palate surgery, including rate of oronasal fistula development, rate of velopharyngeal insufficiency (VPI) requiring secondary surgery, and speech outcomes. We examined the effect of cleft type on the clinical outcomes. Retrospective analysis was performed using clinical records of all patients who received a primary palatoplasty at the Cleft Palate Clinic at Seoul Asan Medical Center, South Korea, between 2007 and 2012. The study included 292 patients with nonsyndromic overt cleft palate (±cleft lip). The results revealed that the rate of oronasal fistula was 7.9% and the incidence of VPI based on the rate of secondary palatal surgery was 19.2%. The results showed that 50.3% of all the patients had received speech therapy and 28.8% and 51.4% demonstrated significant hypernasality and articulatory deficits, respectively. The results of the rate of VPI and speech outcomes were significantly different in terms of cleft type. Except for the rate of oronasal fistula, patients with cleft palate generally exhibited better clinical outcomes compared to those with bilateral or unilateral cleft lip and palate. This study suggests that several factors, including cleft type, should be identified and comprehensively considered to establish an optimal treatment regimen for patients with cleft palate.


1995 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 206-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sigfrid Vedung

Between 1962 and 1976, a one-stage surgical procedure was performed on 328 cases of cleft lip and palate or isolated cleft palate. From 1977 to 1986, a two-stage surgical procedure was performed on 192 patients. After one-stage repair, 22 (6.7%) required a pharyngeal flap at the age of 6 years, and 13 (7%) required a flap after two-stage repair. When the patients were 14 years or older, 56 (17%) needed a flap after one-stage repair, and 14 (24%) required a flap after two-stage repair. Two-stage repair at 24 months and 5.2 years resulted in more patients in need of pharyngeal flaps than those who had repair at 12 to 18 months and 3 years. In both groups, at age 10, the incidence of flaps was approximately 20% after closure of isolated cleft palate involving the hard palate, with 11 to 12% in patients with unilateral cleft lip and palate (UCLP) or clefts of the soft palate only, and 14 to 16% in patients with bilateral cleft lip and palate (BCLP). The pharyngeal flap was more often used in girls than in boys, especially in cases with CP only. Approximately 85% of the flaps were carried out before the age of 10 years, and only a few flaps may have been related to involution of the adenoid. The incidence of fistulas was higher after one-stage repair of cleft lip and palate (CLP) (p < .05) and lower in patients with CP only (p < .05), compared with the results after two-stage repair. Pharyngeal flaps were slightly more common after two-stage repair. The possible advantages of two-stage repair in relationship to maxillary growth, which may justify the second operation, will be investigated when the patients are older.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Klintö ◽  
Maria Sporre ◽  
Magnus Becker

Abstract Background When evaluating speech in children with cleft palate with or without cleft lip (CP/L), children with known syndromes and/or additional malformations (CP/L+) are usually excluded. The aim of this study was to present speech outcome of a consecutive series of 5-year-olds born with CP/L, and to compare speech results of children with CP/L + and children with CP/L without known syndromes and/or additional malformations (CP/L-). Methods One hundred 5-year-olds (20 with CP/L+; 80 with CP/L-) participated. All children were treated with primary palatal surgery in one stage with the same procedure for muscle reconstruction. Three independent judges performed phonetic transcriptions and rated perceived velopharyngeal competence from audio recordings. Based on phonetic transcriptions, percent consonants correct (PCC) and percent non-oral errors were investigated. Group comparisons were performed. Results In the total group, mean PCC was 88.2 and mean percent non-oral errors 1.5. The group with bilateral cleft lip and palate (BCLP) had poorer results on both measures compared to groups with other cleft types. The average results of PCC and percent non-oral errors in the CP/L + group indicated somewhat poorer speech, but no significant differences were observed. In the CP/L + group, 25 % were judged as having incompetent velopharyngeal competence, compared to 15 % in the CP/L- group. Conclusions The results indicated relatively good speech compared to speech of children with CP/L in previous studies. Speech was poorer in many children with more extensive clefts. No significant differences in speech outcomes were observed between CP/L + and CP/L- groups.


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