Dr Triona Sweeney is a Cleft Specialist Speech & Language Therapist, and a co-founder of Speech at Home, which aims to empower parents to help their children with a cleft palate speech disorder. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Limerick, where she teaches the cleft palate/craniofacial anomalies module. Triona worked at Temple Street Children’s University Hospital (TSCUH) in different positions including Manager and Clinical Specialist in Cleft Palate (1985-2013), whilst completing an MSc in Phonetics, University of Edinburgh (1984) and PhD, Trinity College Dublin (2000).

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Triona’s research interests include the development and evaluation of perceptual speech assessments in cleft palate and structurally related anomalies. She developed the Temple Street Scale for assessment of nasality and nasal airflow errors which is used nationally and underpinned some aspects of the CAPS-A. While working in TSCUH, much of the earlier work on the development of the CAPS-A tool was undertaken. Recent research has included a trial investigating parent-led speech therapy for children with cleft palate (PLAT, now called Speech@Home) with Debbie Sell. She has several publications on cleft palate speech assessment and intervention. She received the Clinical Excellence award at TSCUH in 2006.

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Triona is an external speech representative on the Trial Steering Committee for an international trial of Timing of Palate Surgery; Deputy Chair for Cleft/Craniofacial subcommittee of the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics; an Executive Committee member 14th International Congress of Cleft Lip and Palate and related Craniofacial anomalies (2021) and the SLT representative on the medical board of Operation Smile Ireland.

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Triona is an honorary member of the Craniofacial Society of Great Britain & Ireland (2018), and winner of a 2018 Social Entrepreneur Ireland Award with Georgina Wade (Cleft Lip & Palate Association of Ireland) in partnership with Debbie Sell for Speech at Home.