The Cleft Collective Speech and Language Study

Although clefts are generally repaired within the first year of life in the UK, and some affected children develop typical speech patterns, there is evidence that almost one fifth of children have unintelligible or barely intelligible speech at age 5 and 50% of children born with a cleft palate require Speech and Language Therapy intervention at some point. When problems with speech persist, there can be lifelong consequences.

The Speech and Language study aims to create a detailed observational resource for the study of the early speech and language development of children born with cleft palate.