'Benchmarking Speech, Velopharyngeal Function Outcomes and Surgical Characteristics Following the Sommerlad Protocol and Palate Repair Technique'

It has been a very long time in gestation but we are delighted this paper is now online in the Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Journal!

The main reason to repair a cleft palate is for speech to develop well. However, the best timing and techniques of surgery to achieve this are still not known. This study fills a gap in our knowledge. It tells us about what happens to speech development when the whole of the palate has been repaired before a baby starts to babble.  Often studies can be biased but because we have used a gold standard, rigorous approach to speech analysis we can be confident in these findings. 

We found a very low rate of secondary speech surgery and very good speech outcomes in children aged 5 years of age, with less need for speech therapy than is often reported in the literature.

This timing and technique of surgery was pioneered by Brian Sommerlad and is used by many surgeons in the UK and internationally. Indeed, the technique is currently being tested further in a major international randomised controlled trial. It is very appropriate to have the results published of the pioneer of this approach to palate repair for benchmarking and comparative purposes.  

The results of our study compare extremely well with outcomes from other protocols and techniques and will therefore be of great interest to surgeons, speech and language therapists and cleft teams. When children have these types of outcomes the need for further treatment for speech, be it more surgery or therapy, is considerably less, reducing the burden on the child, family and the team and meaning more children go to nursery and school without speech problems. 

A big thank-you  from me (Debbie Sell), the senior author of this study, to Lauren Baillie and current and past North Thames Speech and Language Therapists who have diligently collected the data over the years and especially to CLEFT - Bridging the Gap for funding this important piece of research.

PAPER PUBLISHED

See a summary of the findings in the Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Journal, Vol. 57 Issue 4, April 2020 'Benchmarking Speech, Velopharyngeal Function Outcomes and Surgical Characteristics Following the Sommerlad Protocol and Palate Repair Technique'

L. Baillie, D. Sell

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