We investigate relativistic corrections of order 1/m 2 , where m is the light quark mass, to heavy baryon decays by emitting one pseudoscalar meson in the quark model. This work is motivated by shortcomings in the previous studies in the nonrelativistic quark model for decays of the Roper-like states such as Λc(2765). We find that the relativistic corrections due to the internal motion of quarks are essential ingredients in improving their decay properties such that the decay widths are significantly increased. In addition, such corrections can explain a phenomenological suppression of the quark axial-vector coupling constant g q A for the Σc(2455) and Σc(2520) decays.