Attitudes and Concerns of Parents of Cleft Palate Children about Speech Problems and Therapy

Aim: The purpose of the study was to investigate: 1-The attitudes and concerns of patients with cleft palate (CP) and their parents toward speech problems and therapy 2-The impact of speech problems on the patient’s life. Subjects and Methods: This study was conducted in the cleft palate unit of Montréal Children’s Hospital, Canada. A questionnaire was used to collect the data on CP patients and their parents ’ attitudes and concerns about speech problems and therapy. Results: Subjects of this study were divided into two groups; patients who have not had speech problem (group 1 = 26 subjects, 70%) and patients who have had speech problems (group 2 = 11 subjects, 30%). The majority (91%) of the parents in group 2 noticed the speech problem of their child when they were ≤3 years. In half of these patients, the speech therapy started when they were 3 years old. The majority of speech therapy was long-term and conducted by a speech-language pathologist with some parental involvement. More than half of group 2 thought that the schoo