“She Sounds Like a Small Child or Perhaps She has Problems”—Peers' Descriptions of Speech in 7-Year-Olds Born With Cleft Palate

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to explore how 7-year-olds describe speech in children born with cleft palate in their own words and to investigate whether they perceive signs of velopharyngeal incompetence (VPI) and articulation errors, and if so, which terminology they use. Methods/Participants: Twenty 7-year-olds participated in 6 focus group interviews where they listened to 8 speech samples with different types of cleft speech characteristics and described what they heard. The same speech samples had been assessed by speech-language pathologists and comprised normal speech, different degrees of VPI, oral articulation disorders, and glottal articulation. The interviews were analyzed with qualitative content analysis. Results: The analysis resulted in 4 interlinked categories: descriptions of speech, thoughts on personal traits, consequences for communication, and emotional reactions and associations. Each category contains 4 to 5 subcategories with the children’s descriptions and reflections. Glottal articulation and severe signs of VPI caused the most negative emotional reactions and were described as sounding scary and incomprehensible and the children speculated on the risk of social rejection of the speakers. Retracted oral articulation was also noted and described but with a vocabulary similar to the professionals. Minor signs of VPI were not noted. Conclusions: Seven-year-olds are direct and straightforward in their reactions to cleft palate speech characteristics. More pronounced signs of VPI and articulatory difficulties, also minor ones, are noted. Clinically, articulatory impairments may be more important to treat than minor signs of VPI.

How are speech sound disorders perceived among children? A qualitative content analysis of focus group interviews with 10–11-year-old children

“…The findings included that the 10-year-old children indeed perceived and reacted to articulatory characteristics, that frequently may be observed in children with SSD. Similar results were found regarding 7-year-old children's perception about cleft-palate speech in peers (Nyberg et al, 2020).…”

“…As in previous works by Nyberg and colleagues (Nyberg and Havstam, 2016;Nyberg et al, 2020), focus group discussions were chosen to collect data due to their potential to correspond to authentic everyday situations for children in school-age. The four focus-group interviews were completed in a separate room in the school building with three to six participants in each group.…”

Speech Symptoms of Velopharyngeal Insufficiency and the Incidence of Secondary Speech Surgery in 10-Year-Old Children With Unilateral Cleft Lip and Palate: Comparison of 2 Randomized Surgical Methods for Primary Palatal Surgery

“…Compensatory articulations at the age of 10 years should be rare. These cleft speech characteristics as well as severe VPI can cause negative emotional reactions in peers and also decrease speech understandability 33. However, the results on compensatory articulation vary as well.…”

“…These cleft speech characteristics as well as severe VPI can cause negative emotional reactions in peers and also decrease speech understandability. 33 However, the results on compensatory articulation vary as well. Pulkkinen et al 11 found no evidence of compensatory articulation in their study of thirty 8-year-olds with UCLP.…”

Mothers’ Reactions to Seeing Their Children With Cleft for the First Time: A Qualitative Study in Ghana

“…The extant literature on cleft lip with or without cleft alveolus, cleft lip and palate, and cleft palate (CP) is replete with studies that have estimated the prevalence of the condition in various regions of the world (Agbenorku et al, 2013;Hlongwa et al, 2019;Newman-Nartey et al, 2019), treatment strategies (Chou et al, 2018;Liddle et al, 2018;Nhan et al, 2018;Kappen et al, 2019), the oral health of children with a cleft (Ward et al, 2013;Davies et al, 2017), self-esteem and coping styles (Speltz et al, 1997;Pisula et al, 2014), and life outcomes for children with OFCs (Liddle et al, 2018;Watkins et al, 2018;Chung et al, 2019;Mauriën et al, 2019;Nyberg et al, 2019). Most of these studies have focused on children with the condition as the unit of analysis.…”