Speech Therapy

Children born with a cleft lip, cleft palate or both often experience both hearing and speech difficulties. At Shriners Hospitals for Children^® speech therapy is an important and ongoing part of our approach to cleft lip and palate care, and often begins well before surgery.

Because treatment for cleft lip and palate most often begins very early in life, many children are able to develop normal speech by the age of five. Also, about half of kids with the condition may require no speech therapy at all.

The goals of speech therapy are:

• To develop good speech habits.
• To learn how to produce sounds correctly.

Your child’s speech pathologist will work closely with the medical team to ensure that the right treatment is being offered, determine how long your child will need speech therapy, and to find out whether your child’s hearing should also be tested. The speech pathologist may also be able to help you with feeding problems, and can show you adapted feeding techniques.

If your child has surgery to repair his or her cleft lip and/or palate, speech therapy will continue post-surgery. The length of time your child will receive this therapy will depend on the severity of their speech difficulty. Some children will not require speech therapy at all following surgery.

Some children may also require speech therapy for speech problems unrelated to the cleft. Your child’s needs and challenges will be thoroughly reviewed in a detailed evaluation performed by your speech pathologist and medical team. The result will be a customized treatment plan including treatment at Shriners Hospitals for Children^®, as well as exercises you may work on with your child at home.