Relationship between Frequency of Compensatory Misarticulation with Timing of Primary Palatal Surgery and Cleft Type in 3-7 Year-Old Children with Cleft Palate

Despite the relatively long history of palatal surgery, little consensus has been reached regarding the best surgical techniques, and even less regarding optimal timing. There are still no standard protocols to address the issues of ideal timing for cleft palate repair to attain optimal speech and to avoid abnormal maxillofacial growth after repair. Otherwise, there are various types of cleft of the primary and secondary palate and researches indicate that the extent and type of cleft, surgical techniques, and timing of surgical and behavioral management might impress the frequency and type of speech errors. The present study was conducted to examine the impact of the time of primary palatal surgery and cleft type on compensatory misarticulation in 3-7 years old children with cleft palate.
In the present retrospective descriptive-analytic study. A total of 175 children, aged 3-7 years, with repaired cleft palate were chosen from Isfahan Cleft palate and Craniofacial Team. The case files were chosen based on the entrance criteria and then the personal data and speech assessment forms were filled. Information about the cleft type and timing of primary palatal surgery was collected from children’ files. Data was analyzed using analytic statistics in SPSS, version 16.
Chi-square analyses revealed no significant relationship between dependent variable of the frequency of preschoolers with cleft palate who produced compensatory misarticulation and the independent variables of cleft type and age of primary palatal surgery.
In the present study, the age range was wide, and the extent of the cleft was unclear. Additional research is needed to determine if there are variables (such as type and time of early intervention program) that might have masked the influence of timing of primary surgery and cleft type.