Compensatory speech behaviors in individuals with cleft palate: a regulation/control phenomenon?

The articulation errors associated with velopharyngeal incompetence are of particular interest to clinicians and researchers because the problems they pose usually remain after surgical repair and the reasons they appear may have important implications for speech-motor control. The intriguing question of why individuals develop and maintain such detrimental behaviors has been the focus of our laboratory's attention over the past 25 years. The purpose of this paper is to present a hypothesis dealing with compensatory speech behaviors in cleft palate, provide some data in support of this hypothesis, and project future directions for research. The hypothesis, that speech aerodynamics conform to patterns characteristic of a regulating system, proposes that compensatory behaviors in cleft palate are manifestations of regulation and control strategies.