Metalinguistic awareness of homonymy in children with cleft lip and palate: a pilot study
Metalinguistic awareness of homonymy in children with cleft lip and palate: a pilot study

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of this study is to assess the metalinguistic awareness of homonymy in children with isolated cleft lip and palate and to juxtapose the outcomes with their expressive and receptive language abilities. Thirteen subjects with cleft lip and palate, aged 10.9 years on average (range 9.5 -12 y), were included. All patients had undergone an identical surgical protocol. Age appropriate metalinguistic awareness of homonymy was found in a majority of the children. In some children with isolated cleft lip and palate specific problems with metalinguistic learning occurred, whether or not associated with problems in inferential understanding and comprehension skills at the sentence level. These findings hold the clinical implication that early assessment and treatment of specific metalinguistic awareness in children with cleft palate may be feasible in some cases in order to prevent a delay or problem in second language learning in the final grade of regular elementary school.

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