Velopharyngeal Insufficiency (VPI)

VPI is a disorder which results from the inability to close the gap between the back of the throat and soft palate during speech. Children with vpi have speech with excessive air flowing through the nose.
Pediatric ENT of Oklahoma provides the first and only Velopharyngeal Insufﬁciency (VPI) Multidisciplinary Clinic in Oklahoma. The clinic sees patients from 18 months through adults suffering from hypernasal speech, with a goal of diagnosing VPI causes and determining if surgical correction or speech therapy may improve the symptoms.

Causes of hypernasal speech may range from anatomic and functional abnormalities including:

Cleft palate
Submucous cleft palate
Occult submucous cleft palate
Post-adenoidectomy VPI
Hypotonia
Phoneme specific velopharyngeal mislearning

Our multidisciplinary providers may utilize the following services to diagnose the patients:

Subjective speech assessment
Nasometry
Nasopharyngoscopy
Videofluoroscopy

At your VPI multidisciplinary team visit, you will be seen by Dr. Robert Glade, and Shelly Geddes, a speech therapist with expertise in diagnosis and treatment of VPI.