Electropalatographic and perceptual analysis of the speech of Cantonese children with cleft palate.

This study used electropalatographic and perceptual analysis to investigate the speech of two Cantonese children with repaired cleft palate. Some features of their speech, as identified from the perceptual analysis, have been previously reported as being typical of children with cleft palate. For example, fricatives and affricates were vulnerable to disruption, and obstruent sounds were judged by listeners to have posterior placement. However, some apparently language-specific characteristics were identified in the Cantonese-speaking children. First there was a relatively high incidence of initial consonant deletion, and for one subject /s/ and /f/ targets were produced as bilabial fricatives. EPG error patterns for target lingual obstruents were largely similar to those reported to occur in English- and Japanese-speaking children. In particular, broader and more posterior tongue-palate contact was observed, and intrasubject variability was noted. There was also evidence of simultaneous labial/velar and alveolar/velar constriction for labial and velar targets respectively. The clinical implications of the findings are discussed.