PROMPT - What All The Fuss is About!

It is truly amazing what parents will do for their child.

Last year, I met a family in Thailand who told me that they had moved to the US for one year so that their child could receive a specific therapy called PROMPT. When we met, PROMPT was not available in Thailand, so this family asked if I was willing to travel overseas to do the training. A couple of weeks later, I found myself on a plane to Australia to get trained in PROMPT.

Fast forward to a few months later, I am now using PROMPT with many of the children and teenagers who I’m working with. Some of them have made absolutely incredible progress. For example, after just a few months, a non-verbal teenager can now say a range of words and even combine two-to-three words together in phrases!

So, what is all the fuss about PROMPT? Here is what you need to know:

What is PROMPT?
PROMPT is a type of speech therapy. PROMPT stands for Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets. Basically, the Speech Therapist uses touch and pressure specific points on your child’s face to activate certain facial muscles, and guide the movement of their jaw, lips and tongue. There is a different PROMPT for each sound in English, and in most cases, a sound can have more than one type of PROMPT.  PROMPTs can be used to ‘re-write’ old motor-speech patterns or develop new motor-speech patterns.

What makes PROMPT different to other therapies?
Compared to other therapies, PROMPT works better to improve speech because it gives more support through the additional element of touch. Not all children respond equally well to learning speech by listening (auditory cues) or by looking (visual cues). But when these two cues are combined with PROMPTs (touch cues), the child has something which they can feel, physically guiding their face to move from one sound to another to make words.

How is PROMPT used in a session?
Firstly, your child will learn to say target words with the support of PROMPTs applied to their face. This is done through repeated practice, which re-writes old motor-speech patterns and allows them to learn new ones.

Then, your child will learn to apply these words practice in activities which require turn-taking. This second step helps them to apply what they have learned to interactions with others and will help them generalize their new speech skills to daily interactions.

Who can benefit from PROMPT?
The great thing about PROMPT is that it can improve the speech of both children and adults with a range of difficulties. I use PROMPT with children and teenagers with Speech Sound Disorders, Autism, Developmental Delays, Apraxia, as well as non-verbal children and teenagers. PROMPT can also be used to improve the speech of children and adults with a hearing impairment or to modify accents.

I am really thankful for this family who helped bring PROMPT to Thailand and for the wonderful impact it has made here so far. 

Speak soon,
The Expat Speechie
 
Source:
Introduction to PROMPT Technique Workshop: Manual Australian Version. (2014). The PROMPT Institute. P.H.C Inc.
 
 

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