Effectiveness of intensive articulation therapy for children with cleft palate.

The effectiveness of a 6-week summer residential speech program was evaluated for 13 children with cleft lip and palate or cleft palate only. All children received a pretherapy evaluation followed by 4 hours of articulation therapy daily, for 26 days. Speech status was assessed immediately following the intensive therapy program and again on a 9-month follow-up. The findings of this study indicated that while the subjects significantly improved their articulation performance during the program, their progress was much slower than expected. There was no significant difference between the articulation scores obtained immediately posttherapy and those obtained during the 9-month follow-up examination, even though most subjects had received speech therapy during the year through their public school system. Only 3 of the 13 subjects demonstrated better articulation skills during the follow-up examination.