Taking charge of communication: adults' descriptions of growing up with a cleft-related speech impairment

To obtain descriptions of the experience of growing up with a cleft-related speech impairment and how it was dealt with.

Semistructured interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using a qualitative approach inspired by grounded theory methodology.

Interviews took place at participants' homes or workplaces or at the university.

Thirteen young adults (25 to 34 years of age) born with cleft palate with or without cleft lip.

The analysis resulted in the core category Taking charge of communication, which comprised three main categories: Forming an idea of one's speech, Learning about one's communication, and Taking responsibility for communication. The first main category was made up of three subcategories and the other two had two. The categories emerged as parallel processes in the understanding and active handling of communicative interaction.

The participants described the processes that had enabled them to take charge of their communication. Seeing things from the listener's perspective and being open about the cleft and the speech disorder emerged as important parts of taking active responsibility for communication, as well as accepting their present speech and communication. Communicative participation should be assessed more thoroughly to understand the individual needs of people born with a cleft who have a speech impairment into adolescence.