Cleft-palate and hare-lip : the earlier operation on the palate / by Edmund Owen.

  • Owen, Edmund, 1847-1915.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cleft-palate and hare-lip : the earlier operation on the palate / by Edmund Owen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    the mouth, find the gap soundly closed, they cannot com- prehend why the improvement in the voice is not more marked. They must be made to understand that the amount of the subsequent improvement will depend to a large extent upon the attention which they devote to trying to get the child to pronounce his words distinctly. And they must diligently and persistently set to work in drilling the muscles of vocalization. Unfortunately, however, parents are often but imperfectly qualified for carrying out this education, being deficient in the skill, patience, and persistence needful for the work. But if the vocal education of the child be intrusted to some lady teacher who has experience in the matter, the parents may learn a great deal from her methods, and thus be enabled to give valuable supplementary aid to her work. Mr. R. W. Murray, who has had much experience in the treatment of cleft-palate, emphasizes the importance of per- sistently training these children after operation to articulate correctly. They have the greatest difficulty with the ' s' and the * th,' and the plan which he usually adopts is to get the mother to teach the child some nursery rhyme, as 'Seesaw, Margery Daw,' and ask the child to repeat it from time to time. The child should be shown the exact movement of the lips and tongue of the teacher when the difficult words are being pronounced, and he should be made to imitate these movements with care and diligence over and over again. A person accustomed to teaching deaf-mutes would give very helpful instruction.* If the operation be performed late in childhood the in- tonation is but slowly and but partially improved. * See Haward's paper in Lancet, January, 1887. 6