What to Do Instead of Negative Practice

Full transcript

Good morning. It's Nicole coming in from the NYU Motor Speech Lab, and I wanted to address another quick question that came in: "Nicole, if we don't want to engage our clients in negative practice, what do we do?"

Negative practice is having them say the target incorrectly over and over again, which we don't want. We want to stop them in their tracks, because we don't want to lay down motor plans for incorrect productions. So we always want to stop incorrect productions; letting them continue is what we call engaging in negative practice.

So if we don't want to engage our kids in negative practice, what do we do when they're saying the target incorrectly? DTTC is a very dynamic treatment. We have to remember to be in the moment and listen to how they're producing the word that day, or even in that block, because it does change. And we want to continuously make it easier for them.

Say the target word is "mine," and the child is really struggling with it. Maybe they're saying "vibe," or something like that. You would say it slowly and have them say it with you, slowing down your rate: "Okay, say it with me. 'Mine.'" You'd tell them first to meet you with their lips together. You'd give them feedback to really feel what that feels like. And then maybe you'd give them a nice gestural cue: "Mine."

But what if they still don't get it? Then you can have them say it in a whisper with you. Taking off the voicing makes the target easier. It could still be hard, so what I like to do next is "mine, mine, mine" with just our mouths moving. We're not even going to say anything; we're just going to move our mouths. I always like to end a block positively.

Hope that's helpful.