Stop Consonant Production in Children with Cleft Palate After Palatoplasty

The current study examined stop consonant production in children with cleft lip and/or palate (CP ± L) 2-6 months following palatal surgery.

Prospective comparative study.

Multisite institutional.

Participants included 113 children with repaired CP ± L (mean age = 16 months) who were participating in the multicenter CORNET study.

Parents of participants were asked to record approximately two hours of their child's vocalizations/words at home using a Language ENvironmental Analysis (LENA^TM) recorder. Four ten-minute audio-recorded samples of vocalizations were extracted from the original recording for each participant and analyzed for presence of oral stop consonants. A minimum of 100 vocalizations were required for analysis.

Preliminary findings indicate that at least one oral stop was evident in the consonant inventory for 95 of the 113 children (84%) at the time of their post-surgery 16-month recording, and 80 of these children (71%) were producing two or more different stops. Approximately 50% of the children (57/113) produced the three voiced stops, and eight of the children (7%) were producing all six stop consonants.

The findings of this study suggest that the majority of children with repaired CP ± L from English-speaking homes are producing oral stops within six months following palatal surgery. Similar to same-age children without CL ± P, voiced stops were more frequently evident in the children's inventories than voiceless stops. In contrast to findings of previous reports suggesting place of articulation differences, a somewhat comparable percentage of children in this study produced voiced bilabial, alveolar, and velar stops.