When a parent first finds out their child has a cleft lip or palate, they often have many questions about whether their child will need speech therapy.
How does a cleft palate affect communication development?
A cleft palate does create differences in how young children learn to develop speech sounds. The main issue is that babies with a cleft palate struggle to seal the nose from the mouth when trying to build up pressure for sound play and early consonants.
What are the goals of cleft palate speech services?
Speech therapy focuses on two main goals for young kids with cleft palate. First, we want to improve speech intelligibility, or how well others understand a child.
Second, we want to closely monitor the little one to make sure their palate works well for speech.
How does speech therapy work for kids with cleft palate?
Now that we’ve introduced the two main goals of speech therapy for cleft palate speech problems, let’s talk about how speech therapists address these goals!
Speech therapy for cleft palate articulation errors
When a child has cleft palate related articulation errors, this means they’ve learned to use a different placement of articulation for a pressure consonant.
Speech therapy for cleft palate structural problems
Can a speech therapist correct nasal speech? The short answer is no, but the long answer is, it depends on why the child sounds nasal.
But how do I know if my child with cleft palate needs therapy?
Some figures report that over half of kids with cleft palate will need speech therapy.
Conclusion
At Verboso, we’re happy to be a part of your cleft palate team by providing direct one-on-one teletherapy sessions with our licensed and certified SLPs!