Intelligibility in 3- and 5-Year-Old Children with Cleft Lip and/or Palate: Reference Data for Intelligibility in Context Scale Scores

Objective: (a) Provide reference data for the Intelligibility in Context Scale (ICS) for children born with cleft lip and/or palate and (b) compare ICS scores: between cleft types; with typically developing and normative samples; and across ages 3- and 5-year-old children. Design: Longitudinal prospective cohort study. Setting: Questionnaire data from the Cleft Collective. Participants: Three-year-old (n = 928) and 5-year-old children (n = 795) born with cleft lip and/or palate. Main Outcome Measure(s): ICS – parent-reported measure using a 5-point Likert scale to indicate how intelligible their child is with seven different communication partners. Results: Median scores for children born with cleft lip only were higher (4.14, 95% CI = 4.00–4.14 for 3-year-olds; 5.00, 95% CI = 4.29–5.00 for 5-year-olds) than those born with any form of cleft palate (3.71, 95% CI = 3.57–3.86 for 3-year-olds; 4.14, 95% CI = 4.14–4.29 for 5-year-olds). Scores for children born with cleft lip only aligned with studies comprising typically developing children and normative samples, whereas those born with any form of cleft palate did not. Children born with cleft palate and a diagnosed syndrome scored lower than those born with non-syndromic cleft palate. For children who had data at both ages, 75.4% showed improvement over time, 14.3% stayed the same and 10.3% scored lower at age 5. Conclusion: Reference data are now available for children with the major cleft subtypes which can be used for comparison in clinical settings. These data show how children born with cleft compare with the non-cleft population and change over time.