The Timing of Hard Palate Repair

Abstract

This paper reports on the development of occlusion and of facial profile in two groups of children with repaired unilateral clefts of the lip and palate. The treatment which was given to the children in the groups differed in only one way; the repair of the hard palate was performed for the children in the first group at the age of eleven months while in the second group it is being carried out at five years. An initial comparison of the occlusions and of the facial profile when the children were aged four and a half years (i.e., immediately before the children in group two had their hard palate repair) showed no significant differences in respect of occlusion or of profile.