I am one of thousands of children in the United States born every year with a cleft lip or palate.
The condition, which is one of the nation’s most common birth defects, occurs when a baby’s lip or mouth — in my case, both — do not form properly during pregnancy. Not long after coming into the world, I was referred to the renown Cleft & Craniofacial Anomalies Program at Riley Hospital for Children, where plastic surgeon Dr. Michael Sadove got his first look at my face.
Over years of meticulous work on the operating table, among other cosmetic work, Sadove closed the gaps in my lip and mouth and repaired my bulbous nose. I checked into the hospital for the final surgery just days after graduating from high school. (By then, Sadove had left Riley for the St. Vincent group.)
In between surgeries came the journey of learning how to speak correctly.
Speech development can be difficult for children with a cleft palate because the roof of the mouth is used to form sounds. I could not clearly say words containing s’s and z’s. My voice still sounds nasal, another complication of the defect.
My introduction to speech therapy came at the age of two when I began seeing a speech-language pathologist at Purdue University in 1991.
SLPs are licensed and certified to diagnose and treat articulation, language, resonance and swallowing disorders. Their work is recognized every May during Better Speech and Hearing Month.
Those Boilermaker sessions included some kind of life-skills lesson where I was handed a toy vacuum cleaner to pretend sweeping the carpets. When I hoisted it onto a plastic chair, my mother had to explain how she used her sweeper to pick up Pop-Tarts crumbs from the furniture.
That early intervention was valuable, said Karen Selby, an SLP for South Montgomery schools who began working with me when I was about seven years old.
During sessions in a room next to the notebook, pencil and eraser dispensers at New Market Elementary, we practiced making sounds, focusing on those pesky s’s and z’s.
“It was like we had to undo what you had learned to do incorrectly ... it’s not just the process of say your s’s right, we had to help you with that,” Selby said.
Selby, who is retiring at the end of the academic year, is one of several SLPs employed by area schools. In the South district, Selby works alongside Dianne Lowe and Jill Taul.
Crawfordsville’s team includes Carolyn Weliever, Christine Kelsey, Janna Slavens, Alexandra Roth and assistants Melanie Beach and Jamie Fall, who is resigning.
Julie Swick and Kim Woosley work with North Montgomery’s students.
Nearly 1 in 12 children ages 3-17 have a voice, speech, language or swallowing disorder, according to the National Institutes of Health.
“When I first started in, there was a season where I would just call up a parent and say, ‘Hey, can I work with your child?’ and they’d say, ‘Sure,’ and that was basically it,” Selby said.
These days, more paperwork is involved. Children can be referred to therapy by their teacher and every incoming kindergartner is screened for speech-related issues. SLPs also work with preschool teachers.
I remained in therapy until fifth grade. (My last SLP, Nanette Kentner, acknowledged my early love for broadcast journalism by playfully complaining about Dan Rather whistling his s’s.)
Research-based SLP practices have improved over the years, meaning children spend less time in therapy. By drilling later-developing sounds, some earlier sounds will naturally correct themselves. Most children now finish therapy by the end of second grade.
When the pandemic forced schools to go virtual, the sessions continued online. With all but a few students now back in the classroom, Selby said most children will be able to catch up on their goals.
“The ones we’re really worried about are those who need that extra help and we’re going to have to make up some ground. And we probably never will — we’ll just pick up where they are and then keep going.”
