Velopharyngeal Muscle Morphology in Children With Unrepaired Submucous Cleft Palate: An Imaging Study.

Objective: To identify quantitative and qualitative differences in the velopharyngeal musculature and surrounding structures between children with submucous cleft palate (SMCP) and velopharyngeal insufficiency (VPI) and noncleft controls with normal anatomy and normal speech.

Methods: Magnetic resonance imaging was used to evaluate the velopharyngeal mechanism in 20 children between 4 and 9 years of age; 5 with unrepaired SMCP and VPI. Quantitative and qualitative measures of the velum and levator veli palatini in participants with symptomatic SMCP were compared to noncleft controls with normal velopharyngeal anatomy and normal speech.

Language Development in Children With Cleft Palate With or Without Cleft Lip Adopted From Non-English-Speaking Countries.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether language skills differed between children with cleft palate or cleft lip and palate (CP±CL) who were adopted into an English-speaking home from a non-English-speaking country (late English exposure [LE]) and children with CP±CL raised from birth in an English-speaking home (early English exposure [EE]).

Method: Children (51 LE, 67 EE), ages 3;0 (years;months) to 9;0, completed the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF), Preschool Second Edition or Fourth Edition. Linear regression analysis was used to assess the impact of age of adoption and time in an English-speaking home on language skills, as measured by the CELF-P2 and CELF-4.

Efficacy of continuous positive airway pressure for treatment of hypernasality.

Objective: To determine whether speech hypernasality in subjects born with cleft palate can be reduced by graded velopharyngeal resistance training against continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP).

Design: Pretreatment versus immediate posttreatment comparison study.

Setting: Eight university and hospital speech clinics.