Identification of factors associated with speech disorder cleft palate

Research summary

The aim of this study is to investigate the risk factors associated with persistent speech disorder in children born with cleft palate. It is known that half of all children born with a cleft palate have problems with their speech at age 5 and beyond. When children's speech disorder continues beyond age 5, it is known that the child is more likely to struggle at school and later in life. If we can identify children who are at risk of persistent speech disorder from age 2 or 3, intervention can be provided to reduce the chance of a persistent problem. The Cleft Collective Birth Cohort study is inviting families of children born with cleft palate to participate in a longitudinal observational and gene bank study which will follow the social, emotional, behavioural and cognitive development of the child. The study outlined here will work with the UK Cleft Collective team to recruit families of children born with cleft to an associated study of the development of speech and language skills in children born with cleft in a longitudinal observational study. This study will be unique in the size of its sample and will provide an opportunity to investigate the risk factors associated with persistent speech disorder in children born with cleft palate. With this information, a profiling tool can be developed which will assist clinicians to identify which children are at risk for persistent speech disorder and its associated poor long term outcomes in terms of social and educational attainment. The data collected in this study will form a dataset for use by other researchers, subject to ethical approval, who will be able to make an application to the Cleft Collective team to access the data to answer specific research questions.

Principal Investigator

Ms Ginette Phippen

Contact us

Email: childrensresearch@ouh.nhs.uk

IRAS number

135015