How Does the Soft Palate Work?

The soft palate is a muscular door attached behind the hard palate in the roof of the mouth.

During speech, the soft palate opens and closes a doorway (the nasopharynx). This doorway is hidden and cannot be seen by looking in the mouth. It adjusts sounds and air flow from the throat to make speech sounds. If the soft palate doesn’t close the doorway when it should, a number of speech problems can result.