Oral Placement Therapy

Oral Placement Therapy

Oral Placement therapy

Oral Placement Therapy is a speech therapy approach that utilizes auditory stimulation, visual stimulation, and most importantly, tactile stimulation to the mouth to improve speech clarity.

OPT is a valuable addition to traditional speech and language therapy, which is primarily auditory and visual. Children with motor and/or sensory difficulties benefit from this tactile and proprioceptive form of treatment. To develop speech clarity, some children need to improve articulator awareness, stability, muscle memory, and dissociation grading.

How does Oral Placement therapy work?

When speech has not developed, a child has feeding issues, has apraxia of speech or has muscle weakness, it is time to approach speech therapy in a non-traditional way. Oral Placement Therapy teaches oral structural placements to children who cannot produce or imitate speech sounds using traditional auditory or visual input. It is critical to expanding speech sound production from phonemes and other similar oral movements the child can already produce.  OPT is part of a comprehensive program and cannot be used alone. OPT is NOT a program to be utilized in isolation. Instead, it is a process that initiates nerve cells (cells that are specialized in transmitting nerve impulses) to fire in the brain to create movements that are essential for speech and feeding, using tactile stimulation. However, communication needs to develop first. Thus, we must focus on communication and speech through traditional approaches such as PECS. We must avoid tieing speech to negative emotions that lead the child to cry, scream, and meltdown. We must focus on communication first and work on OPT simultaneously to relax the child, create appropriate motor movements, and help him/her self-regulate.

Summary

OPT is an excellent program as it creates a bridge between Speech and Communication. Through touch, movement, and tools (which include hands), a child can attain actual speech sound production. OPT is used alongside traditional speech therapy, when traditional speech and language techniques such as “look, listen and do as I say” do not work. Our therapists at Mind institute are certified in Oral Placement Therapy. Call us today!

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