Effectiveness of week-long speech therapy by trained nurses in correcting articulatory errors in children after palatoplasty
Abstract
IntroductIon: Most of the children in Nepal undergo palate repair at a later age than ideal and develop articulatory errors. Very few speech pathologists are available in the periphery where great majority of cleft children reside. Re-surge International Surgical Outreach Program Nepal provides week-long speech therapy camps in peripheral sites for post cleft palatoplasty children by trained nurses. This study examined the effectiveness of these speech therapy camps in correcting articulatory errors.
Methods: This is a retrospective study of post palatoplasty patients with articulatory errors. Records of speech assessment performed before and after the week-long speech camp were retrieved and analyzed to compare the number and types of articulatory errors at different sound levels.
Result: Sixty patient records were analyzed. There were 36 males and 24 females. Average age was 7.7 years with a range of 3 to 22 years. Pre-therapy speech assessment revealed a total of 2294 articulatory errors with a range of 3 to 87 and a mean of 38.2. Highest number of errors were seen in retroflex (N=603, 26.3%) sounds followed by dental (N=568, 24.7%) sounds. After therapy a total of 502 articulatory errors (22%) were corrected. Five of the patients had correction of all the articulatory errors. The average number of articulatory errors also decreased to 30.8. conclusIon: Speech therapy provided by trained nurses in a camp
Methods: This is a retrospective study of post palatoplasty patients with articulatory errors. Records of speech assessment performed before and after the week-long speech camp were retrieved and analyzed to compare the number and types of articulatory errors at different sound levels.
Result: Sixty patient records were analyzed. There were 36 males and 24 females. Average age was 7.7 years with a range of 3 to 22 years. Pre-therapy speech assessment revealed a total of 2294 articulatory errors with a range of 3 to 87 and a mean of 38.2. Highest number of errors were seen in retroflex (N=603, 26.3%) sounds followed by dental (N=568, 24.7%) sounds. After therapy a total of 502 articulatory errors (22%) were corrected. Five of the patients had correction of all the articulatory errors. The average number of articulatory errors also decreased to 30.8. conclusIon: Speech therapy provided by trained nurses in a camp