Ellen R. Cohn is an associate dean and associate professor at University of Pittsburgh School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, with a secondary faculty appointment at University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy. She is a faculty member of the McGowan Institute of Regenerative Medicine. [1] [2]
She received a BA from Douglass College of Rutgers University in 1974, an MS from Vanderbilt University in 1975 and a PhD from University of Pittsburgh in 1980.
Her research interests are in the areas of cleft palate, dentofacial and craniofacial disorders; clinical training in speech-language pathology; pharmacy-based and small group communication; and instructional and telerehabilitation based applications of electronic communication. She has done substantial work in supervision of clinicians who deliver speech-language therapy, and in website content development, including websites that seek to engage an international audience.
She has authored multiple distance education manuals, and co-authored Videofluroscopic Studies of Speech in Patients with Cleft Palate with radiologist M. Leon Skolnick. Cohn is a member of numerous professional organizations, including the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and the American Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Association. She has also contributed to: Educause Quarterly, IT Practitioners Journal, The Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Journal, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, The Journal of Speech-Language and Hearing Disorders, and Radiology. Cohn is the founding editor of the International Journal of Telerehabilitation, a peer-reviewed open access journal published by the University Library System, University of Pittsburgh. [3] Cohn is currently the chair of the Telerehabilitation Special Interest Group of the American Telemedicine Association. [4]
A cleft lip contains an opening in the upper lip that may extend into the nose. The opening may be on one side, both sides, or in the middle. A cleft palate occurs when the palate contains an opening into the nose. The term orofacial cleft refers to either condition or to both occurring together. These disorders can result in feeding problems, speech problems, hearing problems, and frequent ear infections. Less than half the time the condition is associated with other disorders.
The soft palate is, in mammals, the soft tissue constituting the back of the roof of the mouth. The soft palate is part of the palate of the mouth; the other part is the hard palate. The soft palate is distinguished from the hard palate at the front of the mouth in that it does not contain bone.
In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the active articulator and passive articulator. Standard Spanish ⟨rr⟩ as in perro, for example, is an alveolar trill.
Oral and maxillofacial surgery is a surgical specialty focusing on reconstructive surgery of the face, facial trauma surgery, the oral cavity, head and neck, mouth, and jaws, as well as facial cosmetic surgery/facial plastic surgery including cleft lip and cleft palate surgery.
Telerehabilitation (or e-rehabilitation is the delivery of rehabilitation services over telecommunication networks and the internet. Telerehabilitation allows patients to interact with providers remotely and can be used both to assess patients and to deliver therapy. Fields of medicine that utilize telerehabilitation include: physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech-language pathology, audiology, and psychology. Therapy sessions can be individual or community-based. Types of therapy available include motor training exercises, speech therapy, virtual reality, robotic therapy, goal setting, and group exercise.
Cleft lip and/or palate is a congenital abnormality that is seen frequently around the world. On average, about 1 in every 500-750 live births result in a cleft. Furthermore, in the U.S., the prevalence for cleft lip with or without cleft palate is 2.2 to 11.7 per 10,000 births. Cleft palate alone (CP) results in a prevalence rate of 5.5 to 6.6 per 10,000 births. Cleft of the lip, palate, or both is one of the most common congenital abnormalities and has a birth prevalence rate ranging from 1/1000 to 2.69/1000 amongst different parts of the world.
Pierre Robin sequence is a congenital defect observed in humans which is characterized by facial abnormalities. The three main features are micrognathia, which causes glossoptosis, which in turn causes breathing problems due to obstruction of the upper airway. A wide, U-shaped cleft palate is commonly also present. PRS is not merely a syndrome, but rather it is a sequence—a series of specific developmental malformations which can be attributed to a single cause.
Hearing loss with craniofacial syndromes is a common occurrence. Many of these multianomaly disorders involve structural malformations of the outer or middle ear, making a significant hearing loss highly likely.
Augmentation pharyngoplasty is a kind of plastic surgery for the pharynx when the tissue at the back of the mouth is not able to close properly. It is typically used to correct speech problems in children with cleft palate. It may also be used to correct problems from a tonsillectomy or because of degenerative diseases. After the surgery, patients have an easier time pronouncing certain sounds, such as 'p' and 't', and the voice may have a less nasal sound.
A palatal obturator is a prosthesis that totally occludes an opening such as an oronasal fistula. They are similar to dental retainers, but without the front wire. Palatal obturators are typically short-term prosthetics used to close defects of the hard/soft palate that may affect speech production or cause nasal regurgitation during feeding. Following surgery, there may remain a residual orinasal opening on the palate, alveolar ridge, or vestibule of the larynx. A palatal obturator may be used to compensate for hypernasality and to aid in speech therapy targeting correction of compensatory articulation caused by the cleft palate. In simpler terms, a palatal obturator covers any fistulas in the roof of the mouth that lead to the nasal cavity, providing the wearer with a plastic/acrylic, removable roof of the mouth, which aids in speech, eating, and proper air flow.
Ectrodactyly–ectodermal dysplasia–cleft syndrome, or EEC, and also referred to as EEC syndrome and split hand–split foot–ectodermal dysplasia–cleft syndrome is a rare form of ectodermal dysplasia, an autosomal dominant disorder inherited as a genetic trait. EEC is characterized by the triad of ectrodactyly, ectodermal dysplasia, and facial clefts. Other features noted in association with EEC include vesicoureteral reflux, recurrent urinary tract infections, obstruction of the nasolacrimal duct, decreased pigmentation of the hair and skin, missing or abnormal teeth, enamel hypoplasia, absent punctae in the lower eyelids, photophobia, occasional cognitive impairment and kidney anomalies, and conductive hearing loss.
Velopharyngeal insufficiency is a disorder of structure that causes a failure of the velum to close against the posterior pharyngeal wall during speech in order to close off the nose during oral speech production. This is important because speech requires sound and airflow to be directed into the oral cavity (mouth) for the production of all speech sound with the exception of nasal sounds. If complete closure does not occur during speech, this can cause hypernasality and/or audible nasal emission during speech. In addition, there may be inadequate airflow to produce most consonants, making them sound weak or omitted.
Debbie Sell, OBE, FRCSLT is a leading British speech and language therapist.
A facial cleft is an opening or gap in the face, or a malformation of a part of the face. Facial clefts is a collective term for all sorts of clefts. All structures like bone, soft tissue, skin etc. can be affected. Facial clefts are extremely rare congenital anomalies. There are many variations of a type of clefting and classifications are needed to describe and classify all types of clefting. Facial clefts hardly ever occur isolated; most of the time there is an overlap of adjacent facial clefts.
Hypernasal speech is a disorder that causes abnormal resonance in a human's voice due to increased airflow through the nose during speech. It is caused by an open nasal cavity resulting from an incomplete closure of the soft palate and/or velopharyngeal sphincter. In normal speech, nasality is referred to as nasalization and is a linguistic category that can apply to vowels or consonants in a specific language. The primary underlying physical variable determining the degree of nasality in normal speech is the opening and closing of a velopharyngeal passage way between the oral vocal tract and the nasal vocal tract. In the normal vocal tract anatomy, this opening is controlled by lowering and raising the velum or soft palate, to open or close, respectively, the velopharyngeal passageway.
Peter James Taub, MD, FACS, FAAP, is an American Professor of Surgery, Pediatrics, Dentistry, Neurosurgery, and Medical Education at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai as well as Attending Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon at the Mount Sinai Medical Center and Elmhurst Hospital Center, all in New York City. He is a diplomate of both the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Plastic Surgery.
Muriel Elizabeth Morley OBE (1899–1993) was an English speech and language therapist who specialised in the management of cleft palate. She was the president of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.
Katherine Vig is an American orthodontist. Vig is the past president of American Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Association.
Alliance for Smiles (AfS) is a nonprofit organization founded in 2004 in San Francisco. They provide free surgical repairs for cleft lip and cleft palate, with missions mostly in the continents of Asia and Africa. They also work to develop treatment centers where continuous follow-up care can be provided.
Mary Louise Marazita is an American geneticist. She is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine.