| Abstract: | Presurgical infant orthopaedics (PIO) is widely used to treat children with clefts. However, consensus on the relevance of this treatment is lacking. A prospective clinical trial is under way to investigate the effects of PIO in unilateral cleft lip and palate (UCLP) babies. The prelexical development of two groups of UCLP babies was compared at 12 and 18 months of age; one group received PIO, while the other did not. Analysis of prelexical utterances was performed by means of a perceptually based sensori-motoric classification system. Consonant-like elements were also assessed by means of phonetic analysis of place and manner of articulation. At the age of 12 months the PIO babies showed enhanced use of alveolar articulations. However, the effect of PIO seemed to be transient, because the recordings obtained at 18 months showed similar use of all variables of sound production in the two groups. The longitudinal character of the clinical trial will enable the evaluation of the long-term effects of PIO as the children grow older. |
