PROMPT Therapy

PROMPT- Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets

Children with Childhood Apraxia Of Speech have difficulty planning and programming the movements of their tongue and jaw muscles.

What is PROMPT Therapy?

Speech is a complex activity; it requires the coordination of the brain and a hundred different muscles. A child faces difficulty coordinating oral movements to produce sounds, syllables, words and sentences. In contrast, muscle weakness is not the same as CAS; these muscles’ strength and range of motion are adequate to produce speech. PROMPT therapy provides the child with physical cues to help them plan their speech movements. For this purpose, the treatment requires one clinician who is a certified PROMPT specialist. The clinician is typically a Speech Language Pathologist who will work one-to-one with the child.

Who provides PROMPT therapy?

A certified Speech Language Pathologist typically provides PROMPT therapy. They are professionals who help children and adults with speech, language, communication, feeding and swallowing disorders. For an SLP to provide PROMPT, they must be certified. For that purpose, there are plenty of online training facilities that will teach SLPs the techniques, treatment planning and skills required to master this intervention.

Please find some of the institutes that provide certification in PROMPT therapy

• The PROMPT Institute
• Smiles Integrative Therapy Services

Who does PROMPT Therapy help?

PROMPT therapy not only helps individuals with CAS. However, it also helps individuals who have different types of speech delays.

1. Motor speech difficulties
2. Articulation delays
3. Autism Spectrum disorders
4. Adults with Apraxia
5. Adults with Aphasia

Firstly, children six months of age who have developmental problems to older adults who suffer from Stroke or Traumatic Brain Injury can enter a PROMPT therapy program. Secondly, it is applicable for problems with varying intensities. Thirdly, it targets issues that directly affect the rate of speech, speech sound production and disrupted prosody. Therefore, this therapy program is highly effective by means of improving speech clarity for functional communication.

What does PROMPT do?

Using this holistic method, therapists can demonstrate the proper placement of the vocal parts- tongue, jaw, soft palate, and vocal folds. These muscles are responsible for phonemes, the smallest unit of speech.

Phonemes form syllables, syllables form words and finally, words form sentences. As a result, PROMPT can be used in all these stages of speech.

What philosophy does PROMPT work on? The accurate placement of speech muscles is what improves speech clarity. For that reason, SLPs demonstrate touch cues that help the child understand where to move their tongue, or how to move their jaw. This effectively gives information about how speech is produced visually, how sounds are blended and how their own speech muscles can do it.

What do you do first in PROMPT therapy? Firstly, the child gets an initial assessment. This assessment allows the clinician to understand the child’s speech skills. Accordingly, clinicians ask the child to produce or repeat some sounds, words and sentences, assess oral structure and functioning, and finally identify challenges in language and speech. Initial assessment occurs in seven interrelated stages. At the end of the assessment, speech therapists can prioritize the target area that causes the most difficulty.

The role of the parents is to practice the techniques demonstrated with the child. This technique works on the motto that “practice makes things perfect”. Each program is socially appropriate and designed for the skill set of each child. By the end of the therapy program, the child will be able to effectively master the use of these skills to produce clear functional speech. MoreovJust like training wheels, the touch cues will be gradually removed and the child will start producing sounds independently.

Is PROMPT effective?

Many studies have proven the effectiveness of PROMPT therapy, especially in children with difficulties in speech motor control and coordination. The use of visual, tactile and auditory stimulation makes the program integrative. New research is continuously evolving the techniques used in this. 

If you are concerned about your loved one’s speech, the next step is to contact one of our highly trained professionals who are certified PROMPT therapists. Get started and schedule your call today!

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