The EASO Study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The Early Assessment of Speech Outcomes in 3-year-old children with Cleft Palate +/- Cleft Lip
IRAS ID
242296
Contact name
Elizabeth (Beth) Fitzpatrick
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Coventry University
ISRCTN Number
ISRCTN99721707
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 1 months, 1 days
Research summary
Children with cleft palate +/- cleft lip (CPL) are an ‘at risk’ group for speech difficulties which may impact upon education outcomes and self-esteem. Speech difficulties need to be identified in the pre-school years to ensure that children with CPL start school with a good speech outcome. However, at present, there is no single measure used to assess cleft speech at the age of three years in the UK, which precludes comparisons of speech outcomes at this age. This study will investigate, in children aged three-years-old with CPL, which speech samples are most easily elicited, the impact of different speech samples, rating scales and methods of assessing how the palate is working for speech on the consistency and repeatability of ratings made by listeners. The study will take place at The West Midlands Cleft Lip and Palate Service (WMCLPS) at Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, and three-year-old children with CPL will also be recruited from this site. Three-year-old children without a cleft will also be recruited as a control group, as well as Cleft Speech and Language Therapists (SLTs) who will act as listeners. The three-year-old participants will attend an assessment session and will complete different speech samples which will be video recorded e.g. name pictures, repeat sentences, produce conversational speech. Cleft SLTs will analyse the recordings and will rate the participants’ speech. The results from Cleft SLTs will be analysed to determine inter and intra-rater reliability (which refers to how consistent the Cleft SLTs were when rating speech). Information generated in the study will be used to propose an assessment framework at age three-years which may have several potential benefits: more effectively monitoring an individual’s speech progress and the impact of any therapy or surgical intervention on speech outcomes.
REC name
East Midlands - Nottingham 1 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/EM/0253
Date of REC Opinion
15 Jan 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion