Intraoral air pressure discrimination under conditions of experimental velopharyngeal insufficiency.

Objective: This study assessed a single subject's ability to detect the difference limen (DLs) for his self-generated intraoral air pressure while his oral and nasal cavities were experimentally coupled.

Method: The subject, a 46-year-old man, uses a speech bulb prosthesis to cover an unrepaired cleft of his hard and soft palates. The subject's oral and nasal cavities were experimentally coupled by drilling different size holes through the speech-bulb component of the prosthesis to approximate conditions of velopharyngeal insufficiency.

Immediate and sustained changes in tongue movement with an experimental palatal "fistula": a case study.

Objective: To determine the immediate and longer-term effect(s) on tongue movement following the placement of an experimental opening through a palatal obturator (replicate of subject's prosthesis) worn by an adult male with an unrepaired cleft of the hard and soft palate.

Methods: Tongue movements associated with an anterior experimental opening of 20 mm(2) were examined under three conditions: a control condition in which the subject wore the experimental obturator completely occluded, a condition immediately after drilling the experimental openings through the obturator, and a condition after 5 days in which the subject wore the experimental obturator with the experimental opening. An Electromagnetic Articulograph was used for obtaining tongue movements during speech.

Treatment of oralfacial clefts by state-affiliated craniofacial centers and cleft palate clinics.

Background: Oralfacial clefting (OFC) disorders require expedient evaluation and treatment to obtain optimal outcome. In Florida, there is a statewide program targeted to the care of infants with OFC. We therefore sought to determine statewide referral and treatment patterns of children born with OFC identified through the Florida Birth Defects Registry.

Routine cytogenetic and FISH studies for 17p11/15q11 duplications and subtelomeric rearrangement studies in children with autism spectrum disorders.

To assess the frequency of cytogenetic abnormalities in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), routine G-banded cytogenetic analyses and FISH studies to rule out 15q11.2 and 17p11.2 duplications were performed on 49 children with ASDs.