A study of strategies for treating compensatory articulation in patients with cleft palate.

INTRODUCTION

Patients with cleft palate (PCP) frequently show compensatory articulation disorder (CAD). Compensatory errors require a prolonged period of speech intervention. Scaffolding strategies are used for correcting placement and manner of articulation.

OBJECTIVE

To study whether some strategies commonly used in speech therapy for correcting compensatory articulation errors, can be more effective depending on severity of CAD in PCP.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Fifty PCP were studied. All patients showed velopharyngeal insufficiency (VPI) and CAD. Transcriptions of speech therapy sessions were revised in order to quantify positive changes in articulation. Correlation between effectiveness of each strategy and degree of severity of CAD was assessed. Also, different strategies were compared in order to determine whether some strategies were more appropriate for specific levels of severity of CAD.

RESULTS

There was a significant relationship between the success of some strategies, as measured by the number of positive changes in articulation, and the degree of severity of CAD in PCP.

CONCLUSION

There seems to be a relationship between effectiveness of some speech therapy strategies for correcting compensatory articulation errors and severity of CAD. Assessment of severity of CAD appears to be useful for planning speech intervention in PCP. Selected speech therapy strategies could be used according to severity of CAD.