What Marathon Training Teaches Us About Motor Speech Practice

Full transcript

Hi, it's Nicole coming in from the NYU Motor Speech Lab. I figured I'd come in after my run, because I was just thinking about how excited I was when we decided to overlay the principles of motor learning onto motor speech therapy for children diagnosed with apraxia. It really makes sense to me as someone who is a runner and who trains. Let me break it down for you.

There are a couple of things I think about to keep my kids motivated during this hard work they're doing with us, and they apply to us too. Today I'm doing intervals, training for the New York City Marathon. These are segments where you're pushing pace. For 800 meters today I was pushing my pace, and then I had a 400-meter recovery. That sounds just like a block when I'm working with a child diagnosed with apraxia.

For those of you who lift weights and work out, it's the same thing when you're doing your reps. You do a couple of reps, you take a break, maybe you do three of them, and that's a set. Doesn't this sound a lot like the treatment we're doing with these kids?

When I think about how I keep myself motivated, here are a couple of things I do.

Positive self-talk. We can teach the kiddos to do that themselves, or we can do it for them: "You're doing such an amazing job. Thank you. I know this is hard work. Keep going."

Giving them an understanding of the expectation. When I'm in a segment, I know where I am. If I'm at 200 meters, I have 600 more meters to go. With these kids, sometimes they just want to know how many more. If you tell them, "Hey, we only have five more left," and you put your hand up and show them, they're so much more likely to cooperate and try to get it done.

The other thing is slowing down. If I'm running, or you're doing your sets, and it's hard, I slow down. That's okay too. That's helpful.

And lastly, taking a break. Give them a break.

I hope this has been helpful.