Perceptuell bedömning av tal före och efter svalglambåplastik hos patienter med velofarynxinsufficiens
Velopharyngeal insufficiency may affect resonance, articulation and thus how speech is perceived by other listeners. Velopharyngeal insufficiency is frequently found in the cleft palate population due to structural abnormalities of the palate. The pharyngeal flap is the most commonly used operation designed to improve velopharyngeal function. The aim of the present study was to compare speech before and after pharyngeal flap surgery by perceptual evaluation regarding nasality, articulation and deviant speech. The study includes preoperative and postoperative speech samples of 28 patients who underwent pharyngeal flap surgery at the University Hospital in Linköping between 2002 and 2007. The speech samples were phonetically transcribed and analysed regarding nasality and articulation by the authors. For comparison of results, naïve listeners and graduate students of speech-language pathology rated speech deviances. Speech was evaluated as less hyper nasal and with less maladaptive patterns of articulation after surgery. Articulation with maladaptive patterns related to velopharyngeal insufficiency, especially weak articulation, decreased more than other misarticulations. Naïve listeners as well as speech language pathology students rated speech as being less deviant postoperatively. Naïve listeners rated speech as being more improved in comparison with speech language pathology students. The results indicate that pharyngeal flap surgery leads to less deviant speech as well as reduced hypernasality and misarticulation, which support other studies. Furthermore, the results indicate that speech pathology training may influence the perception of deviant speech. When assessing the outcome of speech enhancing surgery in future studies, the authors recommend adding the opinion of naïve listeners.