There is no doubt among surgeons that of the main purposes of surgical management of cleft palate is to correct the cleft palate speech (resulting from velopharyngeal incompetency and hypernasality.
Our object in presenting this paper is to analyze preoperatively 23 cases of various types of cleft palates aged above 6 years old, who are able to cooperate classifying the speech sounds separated into two large categories, vowels and consonants, based on Korean alphabetical table:
Since the production of speech involves the processes of respiration, phonation, resonance and articulation, the types of cleft degrees do not suggest any universally constant defect, but show rather better speech in complete cleft to incomplete types in our cases.
The following results of analysis would be greatly appreciated not only for speech therapists dealing with the cleft palate speech problems but surgeons handling the repair of cleft palate in regard to judge the prognosis postoperatively.
1. It is quite acceptable for the most of cleft palatal cases to pronounce the vowel sounds.
2. There are 3 cases among 13 cases of complete cleft palates that reveal acceptable palatal sounds.
3. The 9 out of 10 cases of incomplete cleft palates reveal worse palatal sounds than most of the complete cleft cases.
4. There are significant numbers of patients who reveal the mechanical defect of labial and apical sounds without anatomical anomalies.
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