The purpose of this study was to assess the oral response to severe nasal airway impairment in patients with cleft palate. Inductive plethysmography was used to measure the percent of nasal breathing, and the pressure-flow technique was used to estimate nasal area in 15 persons with severe nasal airway impairment. Mean nasal area was 0.17 cm2, and the average percent of nasal breathing was 20%. Analysis revealed a strong correlation (0.87) between nasal size and percent of nasal breathing in this selected group. Modeling studies based on the mean values from the subjects' data indicated that the model "mouth" would have to open 0.5 cm2 to shunt 80% of the airflow orally, an amount equivalent to the mean value of the subjects' respiratory mode. More important, the extrapolated data revealed that upper-airway resistance decreased in the model from 8.7 cm H2O/L/sec to a level of 3.2 cm H2O/L/sec, which is an average value for healthy adults. These data support the concept that the mouth acts as a variable resistor to maintain an optimal respiratory tract resistance when the nasal airway is impaired.