Abstract
During the 12 years from January, 1980 to May, 1992, 445 cases of single cleft palate visited our hospital to undergo initial surgery and speech therapy. Of these cases, 242 aged 4 and above, on whom comparatively correct evaluation of speech disorder was possible, were selected as subjects for this study. At a statistical processing, SAS was used, and an assessment was made regarding the influences exerted onset of speech disorder by Hayashi's quantified classification II with x2-test and speech disorder as external criteria. Factors related to the onset of speech disorder were sex, cleft type, number of weeks after birth, birth weight, abnormal pregnancy history, abnormal pregnancy course, age at surgery, surgical manipulation, movement of soft palate, age at initial examination of speech and mental development. The factors that clearly exerted powerful influence on the onset of speech disorder were age at surgery, age at initial examination of speech, surgical manipulation, cleft type aid age. From the results of this research, for which consideration was given to the mutual influence of all known factors contributing to the onset of postoperative speech disorder it is clear that it is very risky to evaluate speech by only one factor. The evaluation of speech must take the influences of many items into consideration. The onset of speech disorder can be estimated from these results, to some extent, and the results are usable for informed consent of parents of cleft palate patients.
