 A cleft of the lip and or palette is one of the most common birth defects and part of my job is to deal with the all-important soft palette muscle. This is the muscle at the back of your mouth that makes sure that when you swallow something it doesn't come out of your nose and when you say daddy it doesn't sound like nanny or baby it doesn't sound like Mamie. So when this muscle doesn't work as it should you can sound a little bit nasal a lot more meh-huh. You can also make speech errors which are specific to this disorder. My thesis is around training community-based speech therapists in these speech characteristics. I've worked in that role where you see a huge variety of disorders and syndromes. So I wanted to make sure that when a child with these difficulties comes along they're identified, given appropriate therapy and a referral to a team is made when required. Why? Because very often the only way to remediate that nasal tone is with surgery for speech and those speech errors need specific techniques to fix them. Now research shows the professionals learn best when they receive teaching from specialists in the field compared to self-directed learning or attending seminars which can be quite passive. This study enrolled speech therapists who are attending a cleft speech workshop run by myself and my colleague who's an international specialist in this area. I asked participating speech therapists to evaluate the same three-speed samples before, immediately after and four to six weeks after the workshop. The study looked at the effectiveness of the workshop by assessing speech therapist performance compared to a gold standard and any improvement in the level of confidence. We had 72 speech therapists attend and participate which is huge in speech therapy with attendees ranging from new graduates to those over 30 years of experience. Now our initial findings are very encouraging. As expected we saw an improvement in the speech therapist's level of confidence after the workshop but more importantly we saw an improvement in the accuracy of their evaluations across key speech parameters and the gains in both both measures appeared have been maintained at the four to six week follow-up. So as a professional working in this area this study these findings are very satisfying. Inappropriate or delayed speech therapy can result in children with these disorders suffering through increasing frustration as they struggle in both educational and social context. This study shows that a practical specialist-led intervention can improve clinical skills as well as confidence in managing cleft speech disorders and this means that a lot more children can get the right therapy and the right treatment at the right time. Thank you.