Treatment of speech sound disorders in children: Nonspeech oral exercises

BACKGROUND: Children with speech disorders need to receive effective services to improve their speech intelligibility. A variety of treatments are available, and one of the most commonly used techniques is oral-motor training, which includes nonspeech oral exercises. METHODS: This paper conducted a review of the literature on using nonspeech oral exercises to treat children with developmental speech sound disorders. RESULTS: Despite the popularity of this treatment, the nonspeech oral techniques lack supporting evidence in existing literature. Also, the justification of the proposed rationales for this treatment is being questioned. Many other speech-based approaches that are supported by research are available for speech-language pathologists. Some have suggested that any oral training and activity should be performed in the context of speech. The appropriate role of nonspeech oral exercises is that they should be ultimately practiced within the context of speech. CONCLUSION: Generally, oral training that does not involve speech production should be considered carefully with respect to a client's speech needs. Thus, further research is needed to examine the clinical value of using nonspeech oral exercises to treat speech sound disorders in children.