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The Lancaster Cleft Palate Clinic was organized for the purposes of establishing, equipping, maintaining, and operating an institution, hospital for special services, or clinic for the treatment of all defective formations of the mouth, teeth, palate, and face; for the establishment and operation of a school for the retraining of those with speech or hearing defects associated with or without oral defects; and for the conduct of research in, and publication of information relative to, the above fields.

Because of different training and techniques, one is prone to place emphasis on treatment in a particular field, thereby producing a dilemma in the minds of the professional personnel as well as the patient. We hope to avoid some of the attendant confusion which only adds to the trauma already present in the patient and his family. The importance of a long-range view of the whole cleft palate problem is stressed. By the use of cinefluorography with image intensification, together with the sound spectroscope, we can study the physiologic action of the pharyngeal muscles, soft palate, tongue, lips, etc., in producing normal specch; by comparison with the norm we are able to determine and establish a better diagnosis for the treatment plan in the postoperative case where speech is poor and the velopharyngeal sphincter action is faulty. (We feel that in the future the cine-fluoroscope with image intensification will be used effectively in constructing teaching films of other anatomic parts in motion of interest to orthodontists. We recently were told that we will receive a grant from the Ford Foundation. With funds from that grant, we plan to construct a series of films for teaching purposes. Dr. Lester Burket, Dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Dentistry, has consented to become chairman of the advisory committee in this effort.)

1. 1. An attempt has been made to show some recent trends in the management of persons with oral-facial and/or speech handicaps. 2. 2. It can be truthfully stated that dentistry has made more progress in the last 25 years than it did in the previous century. Whether dentistry is now or ever will be considered a branch of medicine is no longer the question. The fact remains that dentistry as a part of the public health services is equal in importance to many of the now accepted branches of medicine.5 At times it appears almost tragic that the teaching of stomatology was separated from medicine. 3. 3. The public should be made to accept responsibility as a part of the “team” in helping the oral-facially handicapped person gain his rightful place in society. 4. 4. It should be a basic assumption that if a person is going to do anything at all, he should be able to know that he looks like a normal person and he should be able to speak easily and clearly. Nothing else is so necessary to his social and educational development. It is difficult to give first importance to any one of the many other problems with which persons with cleft palate speech and/or facial deformities must contend.