December 26, 2022 · 1:32 · Feedback · Making the shift
Feedback Through Interoception and Performance Imagery
The biggest change in Nicole's switch to motor speech therapy was her feedback: she asks kids to notice how an accurate word felt, then has them recall that feeling before the next try, the way athletes use performance imagery.
Full transcript
Nicole here from the NYU Motor Speech Lab. Today I'm at my second office. I made a commitment to myself to do a post every Monday for our lab, and I didn't want it to not happen today, the day after Christmas.
Something I'm going to be talking about a lot is that when I made the switch to motor speech therapy, what really changed for me was the way I deliver my feedback. I'm going to give tons of examples of this, but one of the things I've used with success is a sense of interoception.
When the child says the word accurately, I stop and I say, "Did you feel the way your mouth felt when you said that perfect 'bee'? Did you feel the way your lips came together? Did you see how your lips spread and tightened, almost like a smile? I want you to think about how that felt. I want you to think about how your mouth felt to say that word."
And then I borrow from a principle of performance imagery, which is what professional athletes do. Before we say the target word, when I already know they've said it accurately, I'll say to them, "Okay, we're going to work on our 'bee' word now, and I want you to really think about how your mouth felt when you said that word last time and you said it accurately."
I'm telling you, giving them these tools really, really sets them up for success.
