-quick hijack guys, sorry-
Hi 3andnomore. Well, my DS1's cleft wasn't a straightforward cleft, it's what's called 'neuromuscular dysfunction'. It's more to do with the muscles within the soft palate than the hard palate. Yes, he still has the nasal twang, particularly on the 'S' sounds. He had three operations between the ages of 3 and 5 (he's 9 now.) The first two ops were to 'bridge a gap' where his soft palate wasn't closing off properly against the rear of the throat. These didn't work properly, so the surgoen had to do the operation that he didn't really want to do as it's quite artificial, it involved stitching the muscles within the soft palate to the rear wall to acheive that closure. This was successful, but hasn't been a 'magic wand' as he still has a few sound problems. He's still having nasal emissions too I think. He's been discharged from outpatients/check ups, so I guess he's just going to have to stay as he is, which isn't too bad at all, just the sneaky 'S' sound.
My DS2 has had speech problems too, it was thought that he had the same as DS1 but on investigation, it turns out not, and his speech problems have responded well to speech therapy.
Interestingly, I had a straightforward hard palate cleft when I was born. Had one op at a year old, lots of speech therapy once I was talking and all was well. I too sound nasally though, particularly on answerphones, I hate speaking on answerphones, or video or anything like that. I didn't have the hare lip, my Mum says when I was born it looked like that was going to develop in the womb, but didn't, as I had a dark red mark across my top lip which lasted quite a long time but faded gradually. I don't think I knew about your cleft, perhaps I did (my memory ) that's interesting. Have any of your DC had it? It can be hereditary can't it?