Techniques to Teach Speech

PROMPT – Bridging Technique to Intervention Course Review
PROMPT (Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets) looks at the oral motor skills of the individual and whether there are any deficits present which may affect the development of speech. Deborah Hayden (founder of PROMPT) describes the PROMPT system as one which uses tactile cues of pressure, place and timing to promote and enhance effective neuro-muscular movements and coordination for the learning of speech (Hayden, D; 1994). There is considered to be 3 main uses of PROMPT:
To develop awareness of oral communication
To develop receptive language and teach concepts by introducing the child to new sounds and words by using the technique
To develop and rebalance the speech subsystem at sound, word and phrase level
Prompt then supports the child’s speech by providing a vocal model and specific tactile cues to evoke a word approximation. As the child’s success at producing a range of sounds increases, the aim would be to fade the PROMPTs (Hayden, 1984).
PROMPT Bridging Technique to Intervention was hosted in Richmond Hill, Ontario in Canada. Prior to me taking the course there were only 2 Speech Therapists in the UK who were trained at PROMPT Level 2. Due to most PROMPT Level 2 courses being hosted in Canada and the USA, I was lucky enough to go out to Canada for a week.
The course lasted for 3 days and consisted of a review and practice of the PROMPT technique as well as learning how to “bridge” the technique to intervention in order to develop goals for each individual child. The advice that they were giving with regards to developing goals fully support and reflects the work that we currently do with all the children, which included:
Ensuring that everything that we work on is functional, therefore highly supporting the manding programmes which we focus on with every child.
Giving the least amount of prompts as we can, but at the same time giving as much support as the child needs to ensure success.
Ensuring that each session involves a high level of repetitive practice to increase accuracy of production
PROMPT (Level2) Bridging Technique to Intervention was a fantastic course, and I am very excited to start using what I have learned within my work!
Carys Jenkins, SLT