Isolated cleft palate affects 1 to 25 newborns per 10,000 births worldwide.
Its incidence varies internationally.
Cleft palette may cause difficulty with communication with abnormal speech development, and hearing loss, feeding problems, particularly within the first year of life, aberrant, dental development, facial growth and psychological difficulties.
Isolated cleft palate without cleft lip is twice as common among girls with a frequency of approximately 0.4 per 1000 live births.
Velopharyngeal function refers to the closure between the velum and pharyngeal walls to separate the oral and nasal cavities during speech and swallowing.
this closure prevents oral nasal coupling during speech, enabling intraoral air pressure sufficient for a pressure consonants, which are a normal prerequisite development of prelinguistic behavior and speech.
Medically fit infants that underwent primary surgery for isolated cleft palate at six months of age ate less likely to have the velopharyngeal insufficiency at age 5 years in those who had surgery at 12 months of age.