July 21, 2026 · 2:34 · Session planning · DTTC
Treating CAS and Other Speech-Language Goals in the Same Session
After the Apraxia Kids conference, Nicole answers a common question: how to use DTTC with a child who has childhood apraxia of speech and also has other speech, language or social goals.
Full transcript
Hi, it's Nicole coming in from the NYU Motor Speech Lab. This is my first video after the Apraxia Kids Conference. It was amazing to meet so many of you in person again and just reconnect. What a wonderful conference.
I did get a question come in, and basically it was something along the lines of: "I have a child. They have childhood apraxia of speech, but there are also other speech and language needs that this child has. I want to organize my session in a way that I can do DTTC, but I don't then know how to address the other goals that this client has."
And I did want to just come in and talk about this, because obviously this is going to affect a lot of us who are trying to, or attempting to, use this technique. And you know, at the NYU Motor Speech Lab and at the Case Speech Lab, we're frequently collaborating. We are doing the research and wanting to give you everything that we're learning, so that you can take what we're learning and use it in your sessions.
So I love getting questions like this, because essentially, how can you sort of retrofit DTTC? And what I want to remind you is that you are the architect of your speech sessions, right? So if you have a half-hour or 45-minute session, and you know your client needs motor speech work as well as maybe traditional artic stuff, or maybe there's some pragmatic language, social stuff that you would like to target, the best way I see doing that is starting your session off, maybe the first 15 minutes, with DTTC. You do a couple of blocks. You're really following the protocol. You're not deviating from the technique within those 15 minutes.
And then you do the next 15 minutes, depending on how long your session is, doing a different approach. Maybe you spend the final 15 minutes doing something more play-based, or something more social-pragmatic, meeting the needs of this kid where they are.
So this way, you could organize your session to really capitalize on the time that you have with them and work on multiple different targets at once. I hope that's helpful.
