Timing of palatal surgery and speech outcome

A selection of abstracts of clinically relevant papers from other journals. The abstracts on this page have been chosen and edited by John R. Radford.

Abstract

The authors conclude that those children who are younger at the time of palatal closure have better articulation at 3 years of age.

Main

Chapman KL, Hardin-Jones MA, et al. Cleft Palate-Cran J 2008; 45: 297–308

When palatoplasty is performed early, there is a trade-off between more favourable articulation but adverse effects on mid-facial growth. This study investigated whether or not those children who had palatal surgery carried out at a mean age of 11 months old had superior articulation at 3 years of age than those that received surgery later (mean age 15 months old). Speech production measures and listeners' ratings for a sample of speech were compared in two groups, each comprising 20 children, that were matched for age, gender, race and cleft type. The authors conclude that children who were younger at the time of palatal surgery had better speech outcomes than those who had surgery performed later. Nevertheless, it is stated in the discussion 'that more similarities (speech measures) were noted (between the groups) than dissimilarities...'.