By Pam Marshalla
Q: I have a 5-year-old boy suffering with a bad case of verbal apraxia coupled with an SI disorder. I am desperate for intensive PROMPT and oral motor treatment for my boy. Its heart breaking to watch him try so hard and fail to speak. Please help us. You sound like you are panicking — DON’T. You sound like you think that PROMPT and ORAL MOTOR are the only solutions — THEY AREN’T. There are as many ways of helping…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: Can you explain the PROMPT method you mention in your class on apraxia and dysarthria? PROMPT is short for the system called “Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets” developed by Deborah Hayden. It is a tactile cueing technique for phoneme production. The trainer uses hands-on tactile cues – she touches on and around the client’s mouth – to shape the mouth for speech sound production. On their website, the PROMPT method is described as: “the systematic manipulation of…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: What is your opinion of PROMPT? I have a parent that believes that this is the only method to use with her apraxic child. I have tried to explain there are other methods to try. I am not PROMPT trained because of the time and expense. I also have not been formally trained in PROMPT, but I have seen it in action. It is a very good approach, perhaps one of the best for apraxia. But it is not…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: My son is 9 years old and has been diagnosed with autism and apraxia. He is non verbal and low-to-medium functioning. We are trying to determine the best methodology to help him talk more. I read a lot about your Apraxia experience but nothing about your experience with Autism. Since my son has Autism as well I was hoping if you could give me your expert opinion on what to do as I am trying to determine what is…
By Pam Marshalla
Q: We have a 7-year-old son who has a diagnosis of moderate autism. About a year ago it was suggested that he has apraxia as well. He is completely nonverbal. We have read Becoming Verbal with Childhood Apraxia. Using some of your suggestions, he now imitates about four sounds. It is so frustrating because as soon as we get him to imitate a sound, he loses mastery of an old one – one step forward, one step back. He attends…
