A comparison of babbling and speech at pre-speech level, 3, and 5 years ofage in children with cleft lip and palate treated with delayed hard palateclosure

Babbling and speech in 21 children with cleft palate were compared at pre-s peech level, 3, and 5 years of age. The aims were to study if misarticulati ons in preschool speech appear to be articulatorily related to the sound pr oductions in pre-speech, whether the feeding technique influenced the preva lence of anterior articulation, and if there was a relationship between spe ech and the size of the residual cleft at 3 and 5 years of age. All the chi ldren had the soft palate closed, whereas the cleft in the hard palate was left open to be closed later on. Perceptual judgement of speech revealed a high prevalence of hypernasality, nasal escape and retracted oral articulat ion of dental or alveolar plosives. The latter was correlated with the size of the residual cleft area. There was a tendency towards a relationship be tween absence of anterior sound productions in babbling and retracted oral articulation in speech. The feeding technique, however, appeared not to hav e had any influence on articulatory place.