Social response to acoustic and visual characteristics of oral cleft

This study was concerned with societal preference among speech, visual, and speech-visual characteristics of persons with repaired cleft lip and palate. A 16 mm motion film with sound was professionally made of 17 male, adult, cleft lip and palate speakers reading the first paragraph from "The Rainbow Passage." A heterogeneous group of 30 adults rated their preference for each of the conditions-auditory, visual and auditory-visual-on a seven-point equal-appearing intervals scale. A four-factor design analysis of variance with repeated measures was performed to determine whether the thirty judges preferred at least one variable of the three variables tested. Results indicated that this heterogenous population had no preference among auditory, visual, or auditory-visual characteristics of adult males with repaired cleft lip and palate. These variables appear to be considered of equal importance by persons who are representative of the lay public.