You'll find hundreds of files on cleft lip, cleft palate here on widesmiles.org.
This one is about: Speech: Baby makes raspy, gravely sound - What To Do
(c) 1996 Wide Smiles
This Document is from WideSmiles Website - www.widesmiles.org
Reprint in whole or in part, with out written permission from Wide Smiles
is prohibited. Email: widesmiles@aol.com
>Someone, I think Joanne made a comment to not encourage our babies to make
>raspy, gravelly sounds in the back of their throats no matter how cute we
>think it is. Well Sam, 4 1/2 months, has been making those gravelly sounds
>for a couple months now and we thought it was cute!
>
>So now every time he makes that sound I mimic him but with a clear vowel
>sound; which much to my amazement he will most often respond with a clear
>vowel sound instead of that raspy sound.
Wow, how inventive of you - and probably the exactly RIGHT thing to do. The gravelly raspy sound gets to be a habit that the speech therapists, in unison, hate to see because it is so hard to break. How terrific that you chose to redirect the sound into a positive one rather than simply try to "break" him from the sound.
Joanne