Perceptual Assessment of Resonance Distortion in Unoperated Clefts of the Secondary Palate

The purpose of this study was to examine the frequency with which five speech-language pathologists made judgments of hypernasality during the clinical assessment of young children with unoperated and repaired clefts of the secondary palate. Among the 293 nonsyndromic patients with secondary palate clefts included in this study, 219 were between 1 and 2 years of age. Of those, 83 had undergone primary palatoplasty whereas 136 had not. The remaining 74 children were between the ages of 4 and 5 years and presented with repaired secondary palatal clefts. The results showed that the clinicians were unable or unwilling to assess hypernasality in 31% of the 1 to 2 year old children with unoperated clefts. The same clinicians failed to evaluate oral-nasal resonance balance in only 12% of the children in the 1- to 2-year age group who had undergone palate repair. Only 1 of the 74 older children (1.4%) was not evaluated for hypernasality. Possible explanations for these findings are presented and discussed.