Cleft Lip and Palate: SLP Role in Medical Multidisciplinary Care Birth to Adolescence ecourse
On average, one of out every 700 infants is born with a cleft lip and/or palate. Speech therapists are involved in a patient's care from the beginning since babies with cleft lip and/or palate have feeding difficulties and often require the use of a specialized feeding system. During this intermediate course, we will review the role of the SLP within a multidisciplinary Cleft/Craniofacial team and how the role of the SLP changes throughout the child's medical treatment. The course will address the management of feeding difficulties and appropriate selection of specialty feeding systems. We will review strategies for early intervention for speech/language development and characteristics of perceptual speech assessments in school-aged children with cleft lip and/or palate. There will also be a section specific to clinical decision making regarding velopharyngeal dysfunction and diagnostic speech imaging (videofluoroscopy and nasoendoscopy) procedures for resonance disorders. Video examples and case study presentations will be included.Course Requirements:
- Computer with internet and working speakers/sound are required for this course.
- Course must be completed within 30 days of activation (activate course within 6 months of purchase).
- An online multiple-choice quiz (80% passing score) and submission of an online evaluation form are required for successful completion.
- A certificate of completion will be available to print immediately after course is successfully completed.
- SLPs - ASHA CEUs may be obtained by completing the online ASHA form and checking the "Report to ASHA" box.
Course Objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, participants will be able to:
- Classify various cleft types and diagnosis
- Explain timeline for surgical intervention for children with clefts
- Identify appropriate methods for feeding infants with cleft lip and palate
- Evaluate characteristics of speech and resonance with perceptual speech assessment
- Describe pros and cons of diagnostic speech imaging studies- video nasoendoscopy (VNE) and speech videofluoroscopy (SVF)
Course Instructor(s)
Caitlin Lentz
M.S. CCC-SLP
Is a Speech Language Pathologist at Children’s Health in Dallas, Texas.She started working there after graduate school in summer 2016. Caitlin attended the University of Texas at Dallas for her Master’s degree and the University of Arizona for her Bachelor’s degree. She is currently an outpatient speech and feeding therapist and a speech therapist on the Cleft and Craniofacial Team. Her clinical focus is Cleft and Craniofacial feeding, Cleft and Craniofacial speech and resonance, instrumental assessment of swallow conducting videofluoroscopic swallow studies, and speech imaging for resonance conducting speech videofluoroscopy and nasoendoscopy studies. Caitlin has presented at various conferences including the Texas Speech-Language Hearing Association Annual Conference in 2018 and 2019 and the Children’s Feeding Symposium in 2019 and 2021. She is a contributing member to a research article titled, “Improving the Accuracy of Automated Cleft Speech Evaluation” by James Seaward in the Journal of Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgery, 2018.
Financial Disclosure: Caitlin receives honoraria from CIAO Seminars for the presentation of this course.
Non-Financial Disclosure: None
Course Agenda
Contact hours pre-approved for:
- 3 Hours
- CIAO is an ASHA Approved Provider (0.3 ASHA CEUs) bubble sheet submission required
- As an IACET Accredited Provider, CIAO offers CEUs for its programs that qualify under the ANSI/IACET Standard
- CIAO is authorized by IACET to offer 3.0 CEUs for this program
Intermediate Level
0.3 ASHA CEUs
CIAO is accredited by the International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET). CIAO complies with the ANSI/IACET Standard, which is recognized internationally as a standard of excellence in instructional practices. As a result of this accreditation, CIAO is accredited to issue the IACET CEU.