Improving Oral Imitation in Preschool Children With and Without Hearing Impairment

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of group oral motor games on the acquisition of oral imitation skills and to screen for any transfer effects in speech articulation. Preschool children with and without hearing impairments were taught oral motor games for a period of nine weeks. Students without disability who practiced the games demonstrated a significant improvement in Oral Praxis Test raw scores. Improvement was not significant for the control group of students without disability who did not practice the games. Results for the children with hearing impairments were mixed. No correlation was found between Oral Praxis scores and the presence or absence of articulation errors. This lack of correlation between performance on a test of isolated mouth movements and speech concurred with motor learning research findings that transfer of motor learning from component skills to complex tasks cannot be assumed. The benefits of the oral games were restricted to imitation of oral movements similar to those played in the games.