Gemma Cuffe - Cleft Palate

I’m Gemma, a specialist speech and language therapist supporting children who have cleft palate.

A cleft palate is a hole in the roof of the mouth that occurs during pregnancy.  It can lead to associated problems with feeding, hearing and dentition, alongside speech and language development.

I work together with colleagues from other disciplines to make sure the child gets the right help at the right time.

My job starts when the child is around 6-9 months of age, when children start to babble and it is also around this time that they have their palate repaired.

One of the most interesting parts of my role is using speech assessment as a diagnostic tool to work out whether a child’s speech sound difficulties are going to improve with therapy activities, or whether further surgery is needed to help improve their speech.

We do this by listening to different features of speech that can indicate how well the child’s palate is working.

The best part of my job is the speech therapy! I support communication by developing the child’s speech sounds and sometimes also using Makaton signing or symbols to reduce frustration while the child is still working towards clear speech.

One way that we help young children with their early speech is to introduce speech sounds through fun multisensory play activities like bubbles, balloons, feathers and water play and I can confidently say this is as much fun for me as it is for the children!  

It is incredibly rewarding to know that I’ve supported a child on their journey to find their voice and become a confident communicator and that’s why I believe I have the best job in the world!

If you’d like to find out more about cleft palate, take a look at the CLAPA website www.clapa.com.