Development of speech services for people with cleft palate in Thailand: lack of professionals

Cleft lip/palate is one of the most common birth defects and has a high incidence in Thailand. Most children with cleft still have social stigma from speech and language defects after surgical treatment. Speech and language therapies are required at an early age and require long-term care until teenager or adult. Unfortunately, there are insufficient speech services for cleft because of a lack of qualified speech and language pathologists in Thailand. Development consisted of two remedy modalities of bottom-up and top-down models, Community-Based Speech Therapy Model for people with Cleft Lip Cleft Palate including networking and standard assessments of both subjective and objective measurements. That might be the best and most suitable way to solve problems of lacking speech services in Thailand or developing countries which have similar contexts.