She can talk a blue streak, but few outside her immediate family can understand what she is saying. And even they have difficulty sometimes. Like many youngsters with low-tone muscle deficits, Nancy's oral muscles are not adequately developed to produce sounds clearly. But it doesn't have to be that way. In most cases these children can be taught to speak more clearly, but not with traditional speech therapy alone.
Traditional therapy is based on a multi-sensory approach that deals with the production of speech.
If hearing, vision and muscle tone are normal, this approach usually works. But many children simply do not have adequate muscle tone in the mouth for traditional speech therapy alone to be successful, and they end up frustrated. In contrast, oral-motor speech therapy is based on the premise that normal oral structures and patterns are necessary for normal speech. If the problem is poorly developed oral muscles, then the solution is to strengthen and train these muscles. Plus, children enjoy the oral-motor exercises so they don't fight therapy.