The roof of the mouth is the palate and is composed of bone and muscle and is protected by a thin, moist membrane that produces the red covering inside the mouth. By sliding your tongue over the roof of your mouth, you can sense your own palate. Its role is to keep your nose and mouth apart. The palate is highly significant during speaking because it stops air from blowing out of your nose instead of your mouth when you speak. When eating, the palate is also highly crucial. It keeps food and liquids from entering the nose. A cleft palate, like a cleft lip, develops in early pregnancy when different parts of the face that have formed separately do not merge together properly.
A cleft palate develops when the roof of the mouth has an opening. The soft palate is in the back of the mouth, whereas the hard palate is at the front. A cleft palate can range from a minor gap in the soft palate to an almost total split of the roof of the mouth.