title: Velopharyngeal dysfunction: a systematic review of major instrumental and auditory-perceptual assessments.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Velopharyngeal dysfunction may cause impaired verbal communication skills in individuals with cleft lip and palate; thus, patients with this disorder need to undergo both instrumental and auditory-perceptual assessments.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the main methods used to evaluate velopharyngeal function in individuals with cleft lip and palate and to determine whether there is an association between videonasoendoscopy results and auditory-perceptual assessments.
  
  
  METHODS
  We conducted a systematic review of the literature on instrumental and auditory-perceptual assessments. We searched the PubMed, Medline, Lilacs, Cochrane, and SciELO databases from October to November 2012.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found 1,300 studies about the topic of interest published between 1990 and 2012. Of these, 56 studies focused on velopharyngeal physiology; 29 studies presented data on velopharyngeal physiology using at least 1 instrumental assessment and/or 1 auditory-perceptual assessment, and 12 studies associated the results of both types of assessments. Only 3 studies described in detail the analysis of both methods of evaluating velopharyngeal function; however, associations between these findings were not analyzed.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We found few studies clearly addressing the criteria chosen to investigate velopharyngeal dysfunction and associations between videonasoendoscopy results and auditory-perceptual assessments.
authors.affiliation: Speech Language Pathologist. Doctor of Science in Children's and Teenager's Health- Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul-UFRGS. Professor of Speech-Language Pathology at Fatima College (RS).
authors.forename: Lauren Medeiros
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Paniagua
authors.affiliation: Undergraduate Speech Pathology Fellow - Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul - UFRGS. Undergraduate fellow of CNPq.
authors.forename: Alana Verza
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Signorini
authors.affiliation: MD; MSc; PhD. Associate Professor - Department of Otolaryngology & Head and Neck Surgery/School of Medicine Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul.
authors.forename: Sady Selaimen da
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Costa
authors.affiliation: MD; PhD. Associate Professor - Department of Surgery; Head, Plastic Surgery Section - School of Medicine /Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul.
authors.forename: Marcus Vinicius Martins
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Collares
authors.affiliation: Speech Pathology, MSc, PhD. Professor - Department of Speech Pathology/ Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul.
authors.forename: Sílvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dornelles
keywords: Cleft Palate; Communication Disorders; Velopharyngeal Sphincter