The impact of early palatal obturation on consonant development in babies with unrepaired cleft palate

The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether palatal obturators enhance consonant development during babbling for babies with unrepaired cleft palate. Fourteen babies with cleft palate who had worn anterior palatal obturators prior to palatal surgery were matched to 14 unobturated babies according to cleft type, sex, and age at time of presurgical evaluation. Spontaneous vocalizations of the obturated and unobturated groups were compared to determine whether differences were evident in size of consonant inventory as well as place and manner of consonant production. Paired t tests revealed no significant differences between the groups in size of consonant inventory or place and manner of consonant production. There was a trend for babies in the obturated group to produce more glottal consonants. In general, the findings of this study suggested that palatal obturators do not appear to facilitate production of anterior palatal consonants during babbling.