An interdisciplinary approach to improve oral motor fluency and speech production

Purpose Precision teaching (PT) has been used to teach functional daily living skills by identifying motor movement deficits, teaching them to fluency in isolation and then practising the daily living skill. However, little research has focused on using PT strategies to teach speech. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of directly teaching component oral motor skills using tactile prompting techniques on the fluency of the oral motor component skills and the composite skill of speech production. Design/methodology/approach A pre/post design was used to measure the effects of oral motor exercises and tactile prompting procedures on the fluency of oral motor movements and speech production with an individual with Fragile X syndrome. Fluency timings of oral motor movements and a standardised speech assessment were conducted pre- and post-intervention. An intervention derived from speech and language therapy was adopted using behaviour analytic principles and implemented with the participant. Findings The pre/post fluency timing scores revealed an increase in the fluency of oral motor movements targeted during the intervention. An increase was also observed in the standardised speech assessment scores post-intervention. Originality/value There is very limited literature applying principles of PT to speech production. As such, the present study suggests the intervention was successful at increasing speech production by first targeting oral motor skills.