The relationship between speech and intelligence in patients with cleft palate is not clear, but it has been generally agreed that unless a patient has a marked intellectual deficits or suffers from the effects of other substantial environmental deviation, mild intellectual weakness will probably not significantly impede development of speech.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the results of postoperative speech therapy in relationship to intelligence in 37 patients of velopharyngeal incompetence. The patients who had been received Lateral Port Control Posterior Pharyngeal Flap Operation and postoperative speech therapy were divided into three IQ groups and their speech were evaluated at immediate preoperative and postoperative, 1 year and 2 year postoperative periods.
Followings were observed;
1. IQ distributin of 37 patients with velopharyngeal incompetence was ranged from 60 to 134, with a mean of 94.05, and 19 of them were within thenormal IQ group.
2. Regardless of intelligence, after a brief period of aggravation, remarkable improvement in articulation, intelligibility and nasality ws noted after 1 year of postoperative speech therapy.
3. Significant difference in speech results between above normal and normal IQ group was not observed, but the rate of speech improvement was slightly rapid in the above normal IQ group.
4. In the below normal IQ group, the rate and degree of speech improvement were lower than in the other groups.
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