Speech Pathology
Treatment for Child Speech Disorders
Managing Speech Disorders:
Improving Your Clinical Competence with Articulation Disorders Related to Cleft Lip/Palate and Craniofacial Disorders
by John E. Riski, Ph.D.
Improving Your Clinical Competence with Unique Articulation Disorders
Speech Therapy for Hypernasality
What are the goals of speech therapy for children with cleft lip/palate or resonance disorders?
The primary goals of speech therapy should be to:
- Establish correct articulatory placements.
- Maximize oral-pharyngeal articulatory function.
What are therapy techniques for treating hypernasality?
- Small degrees of hypernasality can sometimes be managed by increasing articulatory effort.
- Since the soft palate is an articulator, nasality improves with improved articulation.
- Oral pressure is directly related to muscular activity of the levator (Moon and Kuehn, 1992).
Which therapy techniques are ineffective for treating hypernasality?
Therapy tasks using sucking and blowing exercises or palatal stimulation are inappropriate and ineffective. In short, they DO NOT WORK.
- Blowing may be diagnostic of velopharyngeal closure in a young child who may be more willing to blow a whistle than say specific words.
How long should speech therapy for hypernasality continue?
If hypernasality does not resolve with several weeks of therapy, formal evaluation or physical management such as surgery or prosthetic devices may be warranted.