Can speech disorders of children with cleft palate be justified by central auditory skills?

Children with cleft lip and palate usually have speech-language disorders with manifestations in various aspects of communication and supply. With regard to auditing, children with cleft palate tend to have fluid buildup in the middle ear due to malfunction of the opening and closing mechanism of the Eustachian tube. The table may develop into Otitis, which is one of the most common causes of hearing loss in children up to 10 years with cleft lip and palate. This hearing loss is usually conductive type and bilateral. Normal hearing is essential for the acquisition of oral language and effective verbal communication and that deficits of the auditory system, congenital or acquired, affect the transmission and perception of sound. Any hearing loss offers sensory deprivation and may thus lead alteration in different hearing abilities.Scientific studies related to the auditory abilities in children with cleft lip and palate are increasing, however, there is a paucity of studies linking central auditory skills with speech disorders in the cleft lip and palate. Thus hypothesized dry the central auditory skills in children with cleft lip and palate who have speech disorders would be different from the skills of children with cleft lip and palate speechless change and also that could be a relationship between speech disorders related to velopharyngeal dysfunction and central auditory skills .The objective of this study is investigate the association between central auditory skills and speech disorders resulting from the velopharyngeal dysfunction (hypernasality and nasal air emission) and compensatory articulations in children with cleft palate. In this research it performed a prospective study of 45 patients, subdivided into 3 groups. All enrolled in the Craniofacial Anomalies Rehabilitation Hospital of the University of São Paulo, with operated cleft lip and palate. They were initially investigated in medical records data on the velopharyngeal dysfunction and use of compensatory articulations in order to compose the three study groups: the G1 with speech disorders resulting from the velopharyngeal dysfunction and compensatory articulations, G2 with speech disorders resulting from the velopharyngeal dysfunction But without compensatory articulations and G3 (control group) without speech disorders resulting from the velopharyngeal dysfunction and no compensatory articulations. Later the subjects underwent a peripheral audiological evaluation and auditory processing tests. The compensatory articulation was the most frequent glottal stop, followed by pharyngeal fricative and plosive average back palatal. The G1 was the group that had the highest number of subjects with altered auditory skills, followed by G2 and G3. Found statistically significant association between the group with speech disorders resulting from VPD and CA with the figure-ground skills and temporal skills. The temporal resolution skill was altered in all groups of this study. (AU)