Abstract

Velopharyngeal Insufficiency (VPI) secondary to cleft palate refers to an incomplete closure of the velopharyngeal mechanism during speech, due to a lack of tissue in the soft palate or the walls of the pharynx, which generates a hypernasal resonance and nasal air emission when producing oral sounds. In this regard, there are various proposals in the literature for the perceptual evaluation of VPI. The objective of the present study is to describe the auditory-perceptual evaluation of velopharyngeal insufficiency, through an integrative literature review. To this end, in May 2020 a literature search was carried out using the electronic databases PUBMED, LILACS, SciELO, and Cochrane, using the keywords: “Velopharyngeal Sphincter”, “Velopharyngeal Insufficiency”, “Cleft Palate”, “Speech Intelligibility”, “Speech Production Measurement”, “Speech Articulation Tests” and “Speech-Language Pathology”, in English as well as Portuguese and Spanish. Original articles related to the topic were selected, and a specific protocol for data extraction was created. In total, 2,385 articles were found. Of these, 2,354 were excluded due to the title, 13 due to the abstract, and 3 after reading the full text. Finally, based on their methodology, 33 articles were used for this review. From the review, it is concluded that the parameters most used for the evaluation are hypernasality, nasal emission, and compensatory articulation associated with VPI. These parameters are evaluated mainly in sentences, spontaneous speech, and words, by an expert speech-language pathologist, in person and through audio recordings.