Effect of Performance-specific Cleft Speech Intervention and Long-term Learning in Children With a Cleft Palate

Recruiting now · Not applicable

Conditions studied: Cleft Palate Children, Speech Disorders in Children, Cleft Lip and Palate, Speech Therapy

In brief

Speech therapy in children with a palate deals with two scientific challenges that will be addressed in this project. The first challenge is selecting the best speech approach for a child with a specific cleft speech characteristic (CSC). Many speech therapists use a 'one-size-fits-all' approach to treat compensatory CSCs resulting in poor short- and long-term speech outcomes. To increase the effectiveness and quality of cleft speech care, it is necessary to find the best match between a specific therapy and a given type of CSC. Therefore, this proposal will compare the effect of 3 different speech approaches on the speech and quality of life in Dutch speaking children with different types of CSCs. The second challenge is selecting the best speech approach to enhance long-term learning and transfer of newly established speech skills to untrained consonants. To date, research mainly focused on immediate therapy effects. It is unknown if permanent speech changes occur. Hence, this project will also investigate the short-term and long-term learning effects (retention and transfer) of the different speech approaches from the first objective. This proposal will improve evidence-based and patient-tailored cleft speech therapy.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT06105099

Run by

University Ghent

People needed

135

Starts

2022-10-01

Expected to finish

2026-09-30

Last updated by the study team

2023-10-27

Who can join

Age: 4 and older, up to 12. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: not accepted.

You may qualify if…

• Belgian Dutch-speaking children with a cleft palate with or without a cleft lip
• Aged between 4 and 12 years
• Presence of at least one compensatory speech error in their speech based on the perceptual assessment of one experienced speech-language pathologist

You may not qualify if…

• Children with syndromic clefts
• Oronasal fistula
• Velopharyngeal insufficiency
• Hearing disabilities based on pure tone audiometry (>25 dB HL)
• Cognitive and/or related learning disabilities or neuromuscular disorders

Where it is running

• Department of Rehabilitation Sciences — Ghent, Belgium (enrolling)

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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