Speech intelligibility among children after repair of cleft lip and palate

Abstract

Children with cleft lip and palate (CLP) often experience significant speech and language challenges due to anatomical and functional impairments. Effective communication requires intelligibility as a key element. Decreased speech intelligibility causes communication partners to misunderstand, become frustrated, and lose interest. The goal of this study is to explore Cleft Lip & Palate child's speech intelligibility in different context. The researcher used Quantitative types of cross sectional survey and purposive sampling from the population who meet the inclusion and exclusion criterions and collected data through face-to-face interviews and through Google form Total 128 participants were attended in this study where the parents attended as respondent as the Intelligibility in Context Scale (ICS) is a way for parents to report on how well their children can communicate with different communication partners. The parents of children aged 3-5 years old were selected from SNAD Foundation Bangladesh, Dhaka Medical College Hospital, SIBL Foundation Hospital. A 7-item ICS completed by parents which scores on a 5-point scale to which how well various listeners understand a children's speech (parents, friends, immediate family, extended family, acquaintances, strangers and teachers). Parents who responded to the questionnaire conforming to the current study findings shows that majority of the participants (67.2%) "always" in comparison to other communicators, including immediate family (43.8%), extended family (39.1%), child's friends (44.5%), acquaintances (42.2%), child's teachers (43.8%), and strangers (40.6%). But the most varied ratings came from “always”, “sometimes” and “rarely”. According to this study, parents understand their child most and family members, friends and teachers understand their child relatively close to parents; strangers and other acquaintances are understand children's speech the least. Depending on whether the listener is a friend or an unfamiliar person, the level of understanding differs. Keywords: Cleft Lip and Palate, Speech Intelligibility, Context, Children.