Psychosocial issues surrounding cleft lip and palate

Abstract

Health care practitioners working with clients with craniofacial anomalies (CFAs) such as cleft lip and/or palate are acutely aware of the many psychosocial stressors that confront these people and their families . However, "less widely known are the specific -psychological and social sequelae of these disorders and interventions designed to optimise the psychosocial adjustment of individuals with CFAs" (Pope & Speltz 1997:371).

A cleft is a11 elongated opening, usually resulting from the failure of parts of the oral cavity to fuse or merge early in the first trimester of prenatal development. The failure to fuse may involve only the lip, only the palate, or a combination of the two. While most clefts result from the interaction · of genetics and environment , some clefts are associated with other congenital malformations, some of which occur predictably together and are classified as syndromes, for example, Treacher Collins Syndrome , Pierre Robin Syndrome and Apert Syndrome (McWilliains & Witzel 1994:442).