Abstract
Objectives:
To ascertain if preschool children with cleft palate +/- cleft lip (CP +/- L) present with a delay in language development and, to determine the nature of the delay in terms of language content, structure and modality.
Participants:
Twelve preschool children with CP +/- L participated in the study.
Design:
A standardised language test, CELF Preschool UK – 2nd Edition, was administered and spontaneous utterances were informally analysed using LARSP and MLU scores. Z tests were used to compare participants’ scores with a standardised scoring regime of a known population.
Results:
Z scores revealed a significant difference between all five composite scores of language development of participants in this study and those of the known population. Descriptive statistics corroborated these findings.
Conclusions:
Preschool children with CP +/- L may be at a higher risk of delays in language development than their non-cleft peers. However, language delay is not a necessary concomitant in this population. This study highlights the possibility that the consequences of preschool children with CP +/- L are more than speech and isolated craniofacial anomalies.