Dr. Aravind Namasivayam and his co-investigator Dr. Pascal van Lieshout at the Department of Speech-Language Pathology (University of Toronto) successfully completed a large-scale treatment efficacy study on 49 children with severe speech sound disorders (subtype: motor speech delay) using a well-controlled Randomized Controlled Trial Design (RCT).

The children were first assessed at baseline (pre-treatment) and were then randomly allocated either to (1) an immediate intervention group (to receive 10 weeks of Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets (PROMPT) intervention; 45-min sessions 2x per week) or (2) a control group that was waitlisted for the same period and received routine home training instructions. Assessments were carried out following the 10-week intervention/waitlist period.

PROMPT intervention resulted in significant positive changes in speech motor control skills, articulation, and word-level speech intelligibility in this population. Dr. Namasivayam shares that, “For the first time, the study provides a clear indication of the magnitude of intervention-related change for this population above and beyond neuro-motor maturation and home training activities, clearly supporting the need for direct clinician driven intervention for this population”.

The study was recently published in the prestigious peer-reviewed Nature.com journal-Pediatric Research: Namasivayam, A. K., Huynh, A., Francesca, G., Law, V., & Van Lieshout, P. H. H. M. (2020). PROMPT intervention for children with severe speech motor delay: a randomized control trial. Pediatric Research.1-10. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-020-0924-4