Velopharyngeal Impairment: A Case Study

The young male client had a Velopharyngeal Impairment (VPI). Working with him post-surgical repair was to increase intelligibility through practicing different sounds in sentences, blends, and in isolation. To help with his hyper-nasality, they put a straw next to his nose while he spoke to help him and the clinician measure how much air he lets escape through his nose. When the client first arrived, he was allowed to talk for a few minutes about his day. He is clearly very social, outgoing and intelligent, so talking about his day was a highlight for him. Once he’d told all about his day they went straight into a warm up. This was just to get the client ready and warm up his articulators, by saying; ‘ah’, ‘oo’, sticking out his tongue, smiling, etc. Once they’ve warmed up the clinician pulls out a mirror and they practice consonant sounds; …show more content…
Being so young he did need reminders to stop playing with the mirror/ his straw, to look at the clinician when she modeled speech sounds, or when he used the straw so she could feel how much air he let escape through his nose. Even when he is distracted at times he will quickly come back to the task at hand when directed to. He was definitely a very active child and would put his head in the clinician’s lap at times when he didn’t want to do something or was bored, but was obedient when told to sit back up in his seat. The client definitely moved around a lot and the clinician was great about recognizing when he was bored or became frustrated with an activity and smoothly transitioned into another activity that got him involved and excited about therapy again. On two occasions the client left his chair, which was an obvious sign he was done with the activity, but was easily coaxed back and would finish the activity when promised they could switch games after a few more