Abstract
Articulation disorders seen in cases of cleft palate include those due to velopharyngeal incompetence and those due to abnormalities of articulatory movement. In this latter group, glottal stop, pharyngeal fricative, pharyngeal stop, palatalized articulation, lateral articulation, and nasopharyngeal articulation are found, and articulation training is indicated. Since articulatory movement differs from normal, acquisition of correct sounds requires systematic articulation training. Training is indicated when no tendency to spontaneous cure is found or when there is some spontaneous cure but a secondary disturbance is also present, and also when the language development age of 4-5 years has been reached.
In the present study, systematic articulation training was carried out at the ENT Department of Tokyo University Hospital, and 137 cases, in whom use of normal sounds in daily conversation became possible, were investigated. The age at the beginning of training ranged from 3 years and 11 months to 41 years, with 70 % of cases under 6 years. The training period ranged from 1 month to 5 years, with training completed within 1 years in 61 % and within 1.5 years in 80 %. The training period of the 71 cases who began training at the age of 4-5 and completed it before entering school was, with the exception of 2 cases, less than 1.5 years. Cases in which training was prolonged were associated with high age at the beginning of training, a lot of training sounds, or mental retardation, but even in such cases, the majority improved after 2-3 years of training.
These results suggest that, although it is desirable that articulation training begin at the age of 4-5 years and be completed before entering school, even at higher ages articulation disorders are curable if systematic articulation training is continued.
