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Telehealth Delivery of Speech-Language Pathology Services for Children with Cleft Palate and Velopharyngeal
Nisreen Naser Al Awaji1, Alanoud Nawaf Alsinan1, Raja S Alamri1
1Department of Health Communication Sciences, College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, P.O. Box 84428, Riyadh 11671, Saudi Arabia.
Background/Objectives:
This systematic review aimed to evaluate the effectiveness, caregiver satisfaction, and accessibility of telehealth-delivered speech-language pathology (SLP) services for children with cleft palate and/or velopharyngeal dysfunction (VPD).
Methods:
Based on PRISMA 2020, we searched PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, PsycINFO, and the Cochrane Library (2000-31 May 2025) for studies enrolling participants ≤ 18 years of age with cleft/VPD who received telehealth services (assessment, therapy, counseling/follow-up), with or without in-person comparators. Screening and data extraction were performed in duplicate. Risk of bias was appraised using RoB 2 (randomized) and CASP checklists (non-randomized/service designs). To account for heterogeneity, we conducted a SWiM-aligned narrative synthesis and summarized certainty with GRADE.
Results:
Eleven studies met the inclusion criteria. Telehealth delivery of SLP services was feasible and generally acceptable to families. Caregiver-mediated interventions frequently showed within-group improvements in speech outcomes, while remote assessment demonstrated moderate agreement with in-person ratings. However, the overall certainty of evidence was rated as very low to low because of small sample sizes, single-center designs, and heterogeneous outcomes.
Conclusions:
Telehealth is a feasible and acceptable mode for delivering SLP in pediatric cleft/VPD patients, with encouraging signals for caregiver-mediated articulation therapy and maintaining multidisciplinary follow-up. Implementation is best embedded within hybrid pathways, reserving in-person visits for complex assessments. Adequately powered comparative studies with standardized outcomes, longer follow-up, and equity-focused implementation are needed.
