Feel the Movement: Feedback for Conscious Practice

Full transcript

Hi, it's Nicole coming in from the NYU Motor Speech Lab with a quick tidbit about making the shift to pediatric motor speech therapy.

One of the ways we talk about making the shift is encouraging conscious practice. The way we do that as clinicians is by telling the child, in the moment, to feel the movement, and giving them specific feedback about it. When the target word is "open": Do you feel the movement? Do you feel the way your lips are coming forward into a circle? Or if the target word is "out": Do you feel the way your tongue came up at the end of that word?

Sometimes I don't give enough of this feedback. I know this because Dr. Grigos and Dr. Case review my videos for research fidelity, and they tell me I'm not, even when I feel like I am. I've been thinking a lot about this, and I wanted to share.

When we as adults are learning a new task, like when I'm working out at the gym and my form is off, I'm really happy to get continuous feedback to change my posture. I'll do it once, and then maybe I'll slip out of it, and I'm happy for someone to say, "Nope, you've got to put your shoulders like this." I think about it the same way with the kids. It's not enough to give that feedback just once. We have to keep giving feedback, cueing them to really think about and feel the movement, because we want them to attain these motor plans and articulatory gestures on their own and generalize them.

So I'm just coming in today to say: it can feel like you're saying this a lot, but it is really important, and it's a big part of making the shift.