Development of Pressure Consonant Articulation Drill Material in Bengali (DRILART-B) For Children with Repaired Cleft Lip and Palate

Abstract

In conversation, intelligibility of speech is a measure of how comprehensive speech is in a given condition. In children with cleft lip and palate, their utterances lack formation of clear and distinct sound patterns. The articulatory errors predominantly observed in children with cleft lip and palates are substitution, omission and distortions. Research studies of English speaking children have shown that the phonological development of children with cleft lip and palate are delayed. This study endeavours to develop a material in Bengali language for the subsequent assessment and management. The material was developed in terms of familiarity and homogeneity. Standardization of the developed drill material was done on 30 normal hearing native Bengali speaking children in the age range of 5-7 years. The same drill material was then administered on 30 age matched cleft lip and palate children for the purpose of identifying the discriminant validity. The normal were found to perform better than the age matched cleft lip and palate group. The coefficient of variance depicted a significant co relation between the normal hearing children. On the other hand there was no significant correlation within the cleft lip and palate group owing to the enormous variation in the type and severity of the cleft present.