Peer attitudes towards adolescents with speech disorders due to cleft lip and palate

Individuals with speech disorders are often judged more negatively than peers without speech disorders. A limited number of studies examined the attitudes of adolescents toward peers with speech disorders due to a cleft lip with or without a cleft of the palate (CL ± P). Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the attitudes of peers toward the speech of adolescents with CL ± P.

Seventy-eight typically developing adolescents (15-18 years, 26 boys, 52 girls) judged audio and audiovisual samples of two adolescents with CL ± P based on three attitude components, i.e., cognitive, affective, and behavioral. The degree of speech intelligibility was also scored by their peers. The study investigated whether the three attitudes were determined by speech intelligibility or appearance of an individual with CL ± P. Furthermore, the influence of knowing someone with a cleft, the age, and gender of the listeners on their attitudes were explored.

A significantly positive correlation was found between the speech intelligibility percentage and the three different attitude components: more positive attitudes were observed when the speech intelligibility of the speaker was higher. A different appearance due to a cleft lip does not lead to more negative attitudes. Furthermore, boys seem to have more negative attitudes toward individuals with CL ± P compared to girls.

This study provided additional evidence that peers show more negative attitudes toward adolescents with less intelligible speech due to CL ± P. Intervention should focus on changing the cognitive, affective, and behavioral attitudes of peers in a more positive direction and remove the stigma of patients with a cleft. Further research is needed to verify these results.