Treatment of insufficiency velopharyngeal: speech results

Abstract

In this work we analyzed the findings on speech from cleft palate patients who underwent pharyngeal flap and speech therapy. The sample is made of two groups of patients, one group of fifty subjects who received corrective surgery for velum pharyngeal insufficiency with superior pedicule pharyngeal flap, and speech therapy treatment. The second group also contained fifty subjects; but they received only surgical correction. The following aspects were analyzed in this work: a) speech intelligibility; b) articulation and resonance, comparing pre and post treatment periods. After comparing the data obtained, we concluded that the speech therapy treatment was of fundamental importance for the evolution of speech of the subjects involved, specially in relation to the correction of the compensatory articulation disturbances.