The treatment usually involves an extra surgical procedure to make that space smaller and more easily closed by the child with the cleft. Speech therapy also is needed to teach the child proper ways to produce the speech sounds that he or she may have learned incorrectly because of the cleft. All of this treatment for those children with clefts with speech problems should happen before the child starts first grade. So it is very important that the child be evaluated by a cleft palate team on a regular basis, meaning at least twice a year, from the time that the child is born until such time that all the problems associated with the cleft are resolved.
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