Phonetic features by babies with unilateral cleft lip and palate

Twenty-three babies with nonsyndromic unilateral cleft lip and palate were audiotaped at regular intervals from 5 to 35 months of age. Narrow phonetic transcription of their comfort-state vocalizations and word approximations was accomplished to describe phonetic development over time and according to the nonrandomized age of palatoplasty. The babies that had earlier palatal repair produced significantly higher percentages of oral stops after 12 months of age than babies with similar clefts that had later palatal repair. No significant differences are evident, however, according to age of palatoplasty, for mean frequency use of oral fricatives up to 3 years of age. For all 23 babies, regardless of the age of palatoplasty intervention, time is an even stronger variable than age of palatoplasty for development of palatal, alveolar and velar place features, oral stops, and oral fricatives.