OROFACIAL ANOMALOIES
WHAT IS OROFACIAL ANOMALY? During embryonic development, a range of craniofacial malformations may occur, leading to structural defects of the anatomical structures which are necessary for speech production. This might be due to genetic defects or some environmental factors. For e.g., the tissues of the palate and upper lip may fail to fuse during the first trimester of pregnancy, resulting in a ‘cleft of the lip, hard palate and soft palate’. These are caused due to insufficient tissue inside the mouth or lip area, and as a result the tissue that is available does not join together properly.
CLEFT LIP AND PALATE The upper lip and the palate are together formed by the fusion of the ‘Fronto Nasal Process’ with the ‘Left Palatal process’ arising from the ‘Left Maxillary Process’ and the ‘Right Palatal process’ arising from the ‘Right Maxillary Process’ resulting in a tiny groove under the nose. The consequence of the inefficient fusion of these processes is the cleft lip. The different types of clefts are (i) Unilateral cleft lip (ii) Bilateral Cleft Lip (iii) Isolated cleft palate (iv) Unilateral cleft lip and palate and (v) Bilateral cleft lip and palate. Unilateral cleft lip refers to incomplete fusion of the processes only
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That is, the Velo-Pharyngeal Port (VPP) acts as a valve in the productions of speech sounds. Due to improper nerve function, the VPP inadequacy impairs the movement. This is the case with cleft palates too. Owing to the palatal split, the pulmonary air that is required for the production of oral sounds escapes through the palatal cavity and thereby making the oral sounds hypernasalized. In general oral plosives are substituted with glottal plosives and palato-alveolar fricatives are substituted with palatal, velar or pharyngeal fricatives. The speech thus becomes