Nasalance scores for Vietnamese-speaking children with oral clefts.

Objective: The study aimed to obtain nasalance scores for Vietnamese-speaking patients with repaired cleft palate with or without cleft lip.

Methods: A total of 29 children with cleft palate with or without cleft lip (4-18 years old, mean age 7.9±3.5 years old) were included in this study. Speech material was designed specifically for the Vietnamese language. The speech material consisted of oral stimuli (19 oral words and 18 oral sentences), oro-nasal stimuli (eight sentences), and nasal stimuli (seven sentences). The patients repeated the stimuli after the examiner. The Nasometer II (model 6450) was used to compute nasalance scores.

Results: The mean nasalance scores were 27.1% for oral stimuli, 40.2% for oro-nasal stimuli, and 57.5% for nasal stimuli. Hypernasality was detected in 41.4% of the patients.

Conclusion: Vietnamese-speaking patients with repaired cleft palate with or without cleft lip who did not undergo speech therapy had poor speech outcomes.