What is PROMPT?

PROMPT stands for “Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets”. PROMPT uses a tactile-kinesthetic approach to provide cues on the client’s face, chin, and neck. These touch cues can help promote more accurate productions of sounds. PROMPT therapists also take into account how various aspects of speech production are impacting articulation. This can include clients’ ability to control sound production, their muscular tone, their ability to control their jaw, lips and tongue, and their naturalness of speech.

Who can benefit from PROMPT?

PROMPT therapy is often used with children who have articulation delays and disorders, motor speech disorders, and childhood apraxia of speech. According to the PROMPT website, www.promptinstitute.com, PROMPT is appropriate for children 6 months and older. PROMPT has also been successfully used with adults with apraxia of speech and aphasia.

What does PROMPT therapy involve?

A PROMPT cue is provided for each sound or syllable the client uses during articulation therapy. These cues are faded as the client begins to accurately produce their target sounds in words and sentences. Therapy focuses not only on accurate productions of sounds but on the client’s ability to sequence sounds together. PROMPT therapy is based on the motor speech hierarchy. This means that the speech-language pathologist may prioritize more early developing motor speech skills, such as accurate movement of the jaw, before later developing skills such as control of the tongue.