Speech

[Kay]

This is my first time visiting this site. My son is 27 months
old and has a Bi-lateral cleft lip and palate. He has had both
the lip and palate repaired. He doesn't talk except for saying
mama and then points and says ahh. He has had a speech eval done
and they said he is above average in all areas except expression.
Will he talk soon or should I start to worry more?

[Alex]

This is my first time posting too -- I have spent all day
trying to find a sight like this where parents can talk to one
another about their experiences raising a cleft child! I am SO
happy to be here!



My son is 2 and a half years old, bilateral cleft lip and
palate (a mild Opitz-Frietz syndrome too). His team considers his
speech impediment profound. He can say all of the vowels, but
only a couple of consonants (m, n, r). He is exceptionally
bright, however, and has taught himself "tricks"
arounds saying the letters he can't say. Because of this, his
team decided to do a pharyngeal flap surgery early (I got the
feeling that the earliest they usually do this is at age 3, but
he's only 2 and a half). They did it two weeks ago. There is
still swelling, making any speech skewed, but I am beginning to
hear letters that I did not hear before (b, p, k in particular).



I, too, am very worried about my son's speech development. He
is so intelligent and has so much to say, but gets so frustrated
because we cannot understand a lot of what he is trying to share.
I am hoping that once all the swelling, etc., has gone away,
there will be a definite improvement in his speech. I'll keep you
posted. In the meantime, feel free to contact me at
alexander.s.c@worldnet.att.net if you have further questions.



Sincerely,



Alex

[Glenn & Katrina]

We were interested to read of your sons progress. Our daughter
is in a similar situation. She is 28 months and was born with
bilateral cleft palate and a receding jaw. She is very quiet and
can say mum but only when she really wants me. Her other verbal
sounds are oohh and aahh and she has just started pointing at
things yet doesn't really verbalise when pointing. She
understands what we say to her yet is not at the point of being
able to tell us what she wants. We are trying to teach her
signing. She can sign "more", "finished", and
"toilet" (as I am trying to train her) but she only
does this when I ask her a question such as Are you finished or
do you want more? then she will sign the appropriate one. She
doesn't initiate any signs herself which is frustrating. She is a
very placid child, not very vocal. We are also very concerned
about her. She has started speech therapy the only advice given
was to encourage signing, and when she does make noises in any
way to get overly excited and copy her noises to imitate a
conversation as she also has trouble with attention span.