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

Cleft Lip and Palate Clinical Trial

Official title: One Size Does Not Fit All: From a Common Approach Towards Performance-specific Speech Intervention and Long-term Learning in Children With a Cleft Palate

Status Recruiting

Clinical Trial Summary

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.

Clinical Trial Description

Objective 1: To compare the (immediate) effect of three speech therapy approaches (i.e.

a motor-phonetic approach, a phonological approach, and a combined phonetic-phonological approach) on the speech and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in Belgian Dutch-speaking children with a CP±L and different subtypes of compensatory CSCs (anterior oral CSCs, posterior oral CSCs, or non-oral CSCs) measured by perceptual and psychosocial outcome measures.

Objective 2: To measure the short-term effects (performance to learning) and the long-term learning effects (retention and transfer) of the three different speech therapy approaches (i.e. a motor-phonetic approach, a phonological approach, and a combined phonetic-phonological approach) on the speech and HRQoL in Belgian Dutch-speaking children with a CP±L and different subtypes of compensatory CSCs measured by perceptual and psychosocial outcome measures. ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Cleft Lip
• Cleft Lip and Palate
• Cleft Palate
• Cleft Palate Children
• Communication Disorders
• Speech Disorders
• Speech Disorders in Children
• Speech Therapy

• NCT number: NCT06105099
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: University Ghent
• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: October 1, 2022
• Completion date: September 30, 2026