What is PROMPT?
PROMPT (Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets), is a system used to treat speech disorders. The PROMPT technique has many facets to support speech change and is mainly used to treat apraxia. This system takes into account all the different ways we use our bodies including: sensory, perception, cognition, ideation, planning and action.
The unique factor to this technique is that the PROMPT program is adapted to each individual. Identifying the client’s strengths and weaknesses in each category will allow the therapist to address his or her unique speech difficulties and apply the most successful program for individual needs. In other words, one can call the PROMPT system “the snowflake approach,” since no two cases (or two solutions) are exactly the same.
When is PROMPT useful?
The amount of time it takes a speech pathologist to learn PROMPT is substantial, but integral to the success of the technique. A PROMPT-trained speech-language therapist is important to the reconstruction of communication. Therapists create programs that are individualized enough to address each unique case of apraxia, but continue to uphold and use the natural standards of development.
This technique has been one of the most successful programs for children through geriatric clients. PROMPT can also be used simultaneously with other techniques and programs. It promotes using any and every tool available to treat the speech disorder at hand, thereby making the capabilities for specialization infinite.
