Speech development in aphonic children.

It has been well established that pre-lingually hearing-impaired children experience difficulties in speech development. Little appears in the literature, however, about speech development in aphonic children. The authors have had the opportunity to manage several children who, for various reasons, were unable to phonate from a pre-lingual age to approximately the age of 5 or 6 years. The children in this report developed various compensatory means of communication, including unusual laryngeal, non-laryngeal and nonverbal communication. Representative cases are reviewed and observations are made regarding the effects of aphonia on speech development.