Voice Characteristics of Kannada Speaking 3 to 5 Year Old Children with Repaired Cleft of Lip and Palate

Abstract

There is an increase of children with cleft of lip and palate in India. However the number of studies investigating the voice characteristics of children with CLP in any of the Indian languages is sparse. Thus the current study is aimed at investigating the voice characteristics viz., fundamental frequency, intensity, jitter and shimmer in 3 to 5 year old native Kannada speaking children with repaired cleft of lip and palate (RCLP). Twenty children with RCLP were considered for the study that were divided into 3 to 4 year old and 4 to 5 year old groups. Twenty age matched typically developing children were also considered for the study. Phonation of vowel /a/ was recorded for each child and analysed using Praat (5.4.14) software. Appropriate statistical analysis was done to compare the results between groups and across ages. The results revealed that only fundamental frequency was statistically different between the groups however age effect was not seen for the same. The remaining parameters viz., intensity, jitter percentage and shimmer percentage were not found to be statistically significant between groups and across ages as well. The reasons for the same are discussed.