Abstract
The articulatory movement of pharyngeal stops of a twenty-two years old male with mental retardation and unoperated cleft palate was investigated. Pharyngeal stops was evaluated by the following methods: auditory assesment of vowels and syllables, oral examination in articulation, naso-pharyngeal fiberscopy and videoradiographic examination. The results were as follows: 1) The patient showed remarkable hypernasality on the production of vowels. In articulation, the consonants, /p, t, k, b, d, g, t∫, ts, dz, d3/ showed pharyngeal stops, /s, ∫/ pharyngeal fricatives and /r, m, n, j/ were distorted. The consonants, /s, ∫/ were pharyngeal stops occasionally. 2) On oral examination, the elevation of dorsum of the tongue was not observed in articulation [ka], while the root of the tongue moved horizontally to the posterior pharyngeal wall. 3) The closure between the root of the tongue and the posterior pharyngeal wall was observed on examination with nasopharyngeal fiberscopy and videoradiography. 4) In this case, the pharyngeal stops in many consonants may be due to velopharyngeal imcompetence, micrognathia and mental retardation.
