Super Duper recently sent me a copy of their new app, Speech and Language Warm-Ups. I have to be honest, when they first sent me the app, I told them I wasn’t interested. There is no evidence for Non-Speech Oral Motor exercises provide benefit for speech.
SD gave me some more insight to their app. It’s based off of a product that they used to produce called “Let’s Pretend Oral-Motor Posters.” SD let me know that they had a lot of requests to bring back those posters and that’s the reason they produced the app using the same “posters” in digital form.
Just because others are using it doesn’t mean it’s right. Dr. Lof cited a survey indicating 85% of clinicians use NSOME although they aren’t supported by research. This had me worried! SD let me know that the posters featured both speech and non-speech skills so I figured it would be best to download the app and try them it out for myself.
The app features several poster pages that give a direction or placement cue. The photo above is the /f/ sound. It shows you a picture of yourself or your client using the app’s camera. Don’t mind the blurry photos of me, it’s hard to take a screen shot and be still!
Tap the play button in the corner to watch a video model of the speech sound.
Tap the upper right corner to do a side by side of your client and the model (or client and the original poster).
There is also a sequences portion where you can combine different sounds in different orders.
The good:
- The cost is $3.99, which is fairly priced in the app market.
- The app features 10 different speech sounds, posters for those sounds, and video modeling for support with camera function for the child to watch himself.
- This one of the reasons we can use apps in different ways than our traditional materials! Video modeling!
The bad:
- The app focuses on non-speech oral motor exercises like smiling, puckering, wagging your tongue, etc. 14 of the posters are for NSOMEs
I was disappointed that the app is so heavily focused on non speech movements. It would be great if they added other sounds to the app and removed the things like puckering and blowing.
Download the app in the iTunes store today.
Have you tried this app? If you have leave a comment and let me know your thoughts!
Super Duper provided me with this app in exchange for the review. The opinions are all mine.
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I will check it out! Some of the clients I treat have Orofacial myofunctional disorders who do perform similar exercises. There needs to be more research backing up the many benefits of these exercises! Way to go Super Duper! Thanks Jenna 🙂 love your products!
Thank you. I respect your opinion and totally agree w you
I agree. If they could use these cute rhymes and posters to target speech sound production and sequences of sounds it would be great for artic and apraxia. I won’t buy it since it’s so heavily weighted on non-speech sound motor movements.
I know research doesn’t support non-speech exercises, but I have really had success with Char Boshart’s non-speech exercises for students who don’t easily say R or S. Once we spend some time (usually less than a semester) mastering the coordination for these, I can get them to accurately produce those sounds.
Thanks for your comment Suzanne!
I love these posters. I use them with preschoolers. I mostly stick to the ones that ‘practice’ speech sounds then extend to CV, VC, VCV etc. Quick, easy and engaging. I will have to check out the app.
I’m sure you’ll love it!
I’ve found that NSOMEs are very useful with some of the kids on my caseload. I have a caseload that’s only kids in multiple disabilities classrooms, many of whom are quite severe. When you have kids who are low cognitively and who have low muscle tone and limited awareness of their articulators, NSOMEs are great to use at the beginning of a session to get them warmed up, paying attention to their articulators, and focusing on what I’m telling them to do (or to use as a transition in the middle of a session when moving from one activity into an articulation activity). I especially find my kids with Down syndrome responsive to them. I was anti-NSOMEs initially right out of grad school since my profs had really slammed them due to no evidence base, but seasoned SLPs on my first job told me they’d had good results and not to dismiss them so readily. Glad I didn’t, because I do find them to be useful.
Thanks for your comment Heather! I do think using them to help kids find their articulators is helpful. The giant market of hundreds of ‘oral-motor” good out there does worry me though. I’m not so sure most SLPs are using them the way you and I might.