Consonant accuracy in Mandarin-speaking children with repaired cleft palate.

Objective: To compare the consonant production of Chinese-speaking cleft palate children with perceived hypernasal resonance (PHR) after palatoplasty and those with perceived normal resonance (PNR), and to assess the possible influence of language on articulation.

Setting: Two hospital cleft lip and palate centers in mainland China.

Participants: Thirty-one speakers were allocated into two groups based on perceptual judgment results of their resonance provided by three speech therapists: one group with PNR (n=20, average age=9.3 years), and another group with PHR (n=11, average age=8.3 years). All participants had no known hearing or cognitive deficits.

Intervention: Articulation was evaluated using two Mandarin Chinese assessment tools, the Putonghua Segmental Phonology Test and the Deep Test for Cleft Palate Speakers in Putonghua. Speaker consonant accuracy was evaluated by two experienced speech therapists.

Results: Compared to individuals with PNR, the PHR group exhibited more difficulties on production of unaspirated consonants, including/b/,/t/,/k/,/ts/,/tʂ/ and/tɕ/, than for aspirated consonants.

Conclusion: The distinctive feature of aspiration in Mandarin phonology brought a language specific pattern to consonant production among those speakers with PHR after primary palatal closure.