Evaluation of speech errors in Putonghua speakers with cleft palate: A critical review of methodology issues

Abstract

Speech errors associated with cleft palate are well established for English and several other Indo-European languages. Few articles describing the speech of Putonghua (standard Mandarin Chinese) speakers with cleft palate have been published in English language journals. Although methodological guidelines have been published for the perceptual speech evaluation of individuals with cleft palate, there has been no critical review of methodological issues in studies of Putonghua speakers with cleft palate. A literature search was conducted to identify relevant studies published over the past 30 years in Chinese language journals. Only studies incorporating perceptual analysis of speech were included. Thirty-seven articles which met inclusion criteria were analyzed and coded on a number of methodological variables. Reliability was established by having all variables recoded for all studies. This critical review identified many methodological issues. These design flaws make it difficult to draw reliable conclusions about characteristic speech errors in this group of speakers. Specific recommendations are made to improve the reliability and validity of future studies, as well to facilitate cross-center comparisons.

• Chinese
• cleft palate
• Mandarin
• perceptual speech assessment
• Putonghua

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Ms Wang Bingbing for assistance with recoding the data and to Prof. Bradley McPherson for his suggestions on this article. We would also like to thank the two reviewers for their helpful comments that have improved the quality of this article.

Notes

¹The term ‘Putonghua’ was used in this study for the spoken form of Chinese language only. Chinese was used for the written form of Chinese language (e.g., Chinese journals) and other situations related to China (e.g., Chinese government).

²A full list of the 37 Chinese articles included in the critical review is available from the first author.