Disorders of resonance and airflow secondary to cleft palate and/or velopharyngeal dysfunction.

The purpose of this article is to help the reader understand what contributes to normal resonance for speech production. In addition, the reader will learn about the types of resonance disorders and their characteristics. The causes of resonance disorders will be described with a guideline on how they should be treated. This article also includes a discussion of normal airflow for speech and the perceptual speech characteristics that often occur when there is abnormal nasal airflow. Secondary characteristics of nasal airflow, including weak or omitted consonants, short utterance length, nasal grimace, and compensatory articulation productions, are also described.