Calming strategies may need to precede therapy. These may include exercises, such as wall push-ups, or deep pressure massage. With young children, these might include pictures of the day's activities in sequence, calendars, pictures of classmates and their weekly jobs, and pictures of vocabulary being taught in a unit. Pictures and logos provide visual cueing for the linking of language to reading. Visual cues are essential for teaching science and social studies concepts, as discussion alone may be too abstract.
Dramatization can also help with the comprehension of story sequences and plots.
For boys with fragile X syndrome, goals may be developed in a number of areas. Oral-motor goals are appropriate for most. Expressive language goals, for both boys and girls, will likely focus on pragmatic skills. Initiating conversations, turn taking, and controlling perseveration and tangential comments are all skills on which the SLP can focus. Children with fragile X seem to benefit most from using real-life situations, such as message delivery, lunchtime conversation, and asking to play a game, to help their conversational speech.