Purpose
To correlate the performance of the oral motor tasks of diadochokinesis in children with repaired cleft lip and palate to the type of cleft and to the presence of lisp.
Methods
We studied 30 children, aged 9 to 12 years, with complete unilateral cleft lip and palate and 30 with isolated cleft palate. Two speech language pathologists analyzed repetition phrases with the phones [s] and [z] to identify the presence of lisp. The analysis of diadochokinesis was performed by registering the repetition of the syllables “ta” and “ka” and the sequence “pataka”. The Kappa test was used to verify agreement between the evaluators, the Chi-square test was used to compare the lisp frequency between the groups, and the t-test was used to compare the diadochokinesis values between the same groups as well as between individuals with and without lisp.
Results
The mean number of emissions per second and the mean time between emissions were not significantly different between groups. Good agreement was observed between the examiners for the presence of lisp in [s] and [z], with the most evident agreement in the complete unilateral cleft lip and palate group. The comparison between the diadochokinesis values and the presence of lisp revealed no significant difference.
Conclusion
The performance of diadochokinesis tasks did not change according to the type of cleft. Further, the presence of lisp speech was higher in patients with complete unilateral cleft lip and palate, but this did not affect performance of diadochokinesis tasks.
Cleft lip; Cleft palate; Speech disorders; Child; Evaluation