June 9, 2026
Practice Makes Perfect
The Power of Motor Learning
This past week, I noticed that my school age friends with speech sound disorders have a slight regression in skills. Why did this happen? It is the end of the school year and everyone is a bit distracted; practicing can fall by the wayside. This highlights the importance of regular practice to promote motor learning. Motor learning builds new neural connections necessary for permanent change. Without it, the speech sounds easily return to baseline. I do not want this to happen!
This is where motivation needs to be rediscovered and novelty needs to be introduced. This encourages my friends to be engaged, despite the excitement and distraction of end of the year activities. The three tools that have really helped me are art projects (like the feature image for this post), the game Slapzi, and the use of clicker counters.
First, the art project featured is a paper bag puppet. This was created by one of my friends who enjoys creating and loves adding to the puppet in between speech trials. Second, the game of Slapzi is a game that I use by having my school age friends find word cards with their target sound. The targets are complex like “hard hard” and “fire extinguisher.” It is a favorite to take the pressure off, work on generalization, and re-engage interest in speech sounds. Lastly, the use of a clicker counter works magic! I recently discharged one of my friends working on “R” production who kept track of how many productions he did over time: 9850! He proudly took his Peek-a-Boo Speech graduation certificate, his folder with all his data, and the confidence in his new hard earned “R” production.
Let’s think of ways we can keep our school age friends on track in the final school days before summer!