Abstract:

Introduction:
The paper is focused on the evaluation of orofacial movements in children with and without speech, language and communication needs. The aim of the research is to present the outcomes of the experimental testing using special adaptation of oral motor gestures (orofacial praxia) test, their imitation and the role of the type of the text instructions of the oral motor movement (audio, visual). The ability of providing orofacial praxia plays an important role not only in speech, but also in facial expressions which are essential for production and perception of nonverbal (co-verbal) expressions.

Methodology:
The research method we used were the experimental tests and analytical direct observation. We tested preschool children from general and special needs educational (speech and language therapy/logopedic) classes with the adapted test of facial expressions and orofacial movements. After obtaining the main results of the quality of conducting different oral motor movements (gestures) we compared the partial results of different age subgroups.

Conclusion:
Our research implies that children from speech and language therapy (logopedic) classes have much more impaired orofacial praxia ability than children from control group without speech, language and communication needs. Girls performed the orofacial movements much worse than boys, but only in the group of children in logopedic classes. We also found out that the way of instruction to the child, audio and visual before testing, have an impact on the children´s performance. We introduce and discuss the use of the evaluation of the quality of the orofacial movements for future planning of complex intervention plan.

Keywords:

Speech and language therapy, special needs education, intervention, communicative disability, orofacial expressions, oral praxia.