Language development of children with a cleft

Language development is learning to understand the meaning of the words and phrases spoken by others and self-learning forms of words and phrases.
Between one and a half years a child says his first words. These words are often not well formed, because the speech development is still in full swing. It is normal that speaking sounds sometimes a little nasal.

Between eighteen months and two years old a child is starting to use sentences with two words. The words are not always well constitutes by a child.
Between two and three years old, children start making sentences of three to five words. If they go to kinder garden, they are often quite able to express themselves. About three quarters of what your own child says, is understandable for others (Goorhuis & Schaerlaekens, 2000).

A few things are important for the best language development:

•  A lot and calm talking with the child
•  It is read
•  The child has a good hearing (UMCG, 2013)

Children with a CLP do not have more chance to language problems than other children do. A language arrears can be treated by speech therapy. At first a speech therapy will do some research on the language skills of the child (VU medisch centrum, 2013).