Abstract
Children first begin to speak at the age of twelve months. The basis of speech, however, is established through mother-child interaction during infancy, and the breadth of such basis affects the over-all growth of the child.
While the mother cares for her child responding to the crying, freting, smiling and laughing of the infant, the child learns attachment, trust, and identification for his mother, and the mother learns affection and self-confidence in her care for the child. Normally, speech is one of the products which learned through imitation due to the secure affectional tie between mother and child during infancy.
Cleft palate children, however, despite having a cleft palate from birth and many problems accompanying such defect, basically learn speech and language in the same way as non-cleft children. As is the case with normal children, cleft palate children show good speech and language development and learn normal articulation, when strong attachment between parent and child and continuing psychological stability are present.
Two cases who couldn't learn normal articulation easily were reported. For optimum. speech and language development, the co-operative effort of a team of specialists in all re- lated diciplines was indispensable, in order to dispel the anxiety of parents and generally support the families.
