Evaluation of speech intelligibility for children with cleft lip and palate by means of automatic speech recognition.

Objective: Cleft lip and palate (CLP) may cause functional limitations even after adequate surgical and non-surgical treatment, speech disorders being one of them. Interindividually, they vary a lot, showing typical articulation specifics such as nasal emission and shift of articulation and therefore a diminished intelligibility. Until now, an objective means to determine and quantify the intelligibility does not exist.