December 8, 2023 · 1:59 · Prosody · Making the shift · DTTC
Key Elements of Practice, Part 4: Practice Prosody From the Start
Vary prosody at every level of the DTTC hierarchy, saying a target mad, happy, as a question, loud or soft, so the motor plan becomes a six-lane highway instead of a dirt road.
Full transcript
Hi, it's Nicole from the NYU Motor Speech Lab coming in with day four, or point four, talking about the key elements of practice, which were created by the Case Speech Lab and the NYU Motor Speech Lab to talk about how we make the shift to motor speech therapy with our pediatric clients.
You heard me talk about the first one, which was structured practice. Then we talked about conscious practice, and about using multimodal cueing in your sessions to get the most out of your kiddos. The fourth key tip is to practice prosody, and to practice it from the start.
So what could that actually look like? We know that within the DTTC hierarchy, we start with simultaneous production: "Say the target word with me." So how could we practice prosody from the start? Say the target word is "me." "Okay, now we're going to say 'me' mad: 'Me.' Or can you say 'me' as a question? 'Me?' Or what about happy? 'Me!'" We incorporate this at every level of the hierarchy, and we're doing it very purposefully.
When they're building these motor plans, and when we're working on neural efficiency, we want them to be able to access variability. When I teach this to my students, I like to ask: do you want a dirt road, or do you want a six-lane highway for your motor plan? We want them to be able to say these words with all of the variability and flexibility. So we also practice happy, sad, mad, as a question, loud, and soft. Try it.
