Self Esteem

[Michelle]

Thank you. I appreciate your comments. However, I was inquiring specifically about cleft palate
only. My assumption is that a child with a cleft palate only will not be "obviously" different from his
peers. Again, I don't want to appear insensitive, but I'm just trying to wrap my brain around this. My
son has a cleft palate only. He is having that repaired and apparently in a lot of cases if the palate is
repaired properly, the child will not have any speach issues. I guess I was just under the assumption
that once his palate was repaired (and possibly some orthodontics) that he would be just like
everyone else. I certainly don't see any difference in him, other than the fact that he occassionally has
milk come out his nose. I certainly don't treat him any differently than our other son. So, can
someone please tell me the lasting effects of a cleft palate only!


Thanks!


Michelle

[Calvero]

Hi, sorry to take so long to reply, I just got over a cold.


There still could be some differences in how your son looks. Has your plastic surgeon talked about your son needing surgery later on in his teens for his jaw? If it's a severe enough cleft palate, and it gets repaired, the new palate usually isn't able to grow out normally and unable to let the top jaw to grow out which will gradually petrude the bottom jaw. Doctors usually wait until the child is in their mid teens before they have a surgery to realign the jaw. They wait that long so that head has stopped growing and they can move it with less complications. This is what I had done when I was 16.


There can still be speech problems even with a well repaired cleft palate, and that's from the crazy way the top teeth grow in. You'll find teeth all over the place, not uncommon to find some growing in the palate. And crooked teeth makes it tough to pronounce certain words since it's tricky to get the tongue to go where it needs to. After wearing braces for a few years (I had mine for about 7, might be less now) it does make it easier.


And there still can be a certain about of nasal sound to interfere with the speech, which is caused when air escapes through the nose when talking.


Hope this helps some more


Kim,
The Cleft Club,
<a href="http://cleftclub.2ya.com">http://cleftclub.2ya.com</a>