Perspective on Speech Therapy
Hello! My colleagues Emily, Elysse and I (Gianna) are currently second-year graduate students at the University of South Carolina. We were curious, if you received speech therapy, what was that experience like? Were there any positive takeaways you feel that truly helped you? On the contrary, did you have any negative experiences where you would advise us to be cautious of as future SLPs? Thank you!
Hi Gianna!
Thank you for your question.
Something that really helped me in speech therapy was reading sentences or paragraphs with breakpoints after every third, fourth, or fifth word (i.e. backslashes). This was very important for me as, growing up, I had a subconscious belief that the faster I spoke, the less likely I was to stutter. While that may have been true at times, others couldn’t understand what I was saying most of the time, which forced me to repeat myself and run out of breath.
For that reason, taking the time to read with appropriate breakpoints was very helpful in therapy.
Conversely, self-talk wasn’t as effective for me. Telling myself “I’ve got this” or “I can do this” is effective in principle but just didn’t do as much for me.
Hi
Thank you for your question, hcb0325. When I was young SLPs didn’t really know how to treat stuttering. I was told to say the days of the week in one breath. (I played the saxophone, so air wasn’t the issue.) I’ve had SLPs telling me to breath properly. (Again breathing.) I’ve had an SLP who became my psychologist, but when I told her my story, she threw it back in my face. All of this made me feel less, incapable, a failure. Today most SLPs understand that fluency is not the one and only goal, but for a client to say what s/he wants to say, the way s/he feels comfortable with. Whether that’s with some help to get out of a block, to gain more self-esteem, to expend comfort zones or even to help explain stuttering to others or to find the answers to raise awareness. A good SLP works together with the client, listens, asks questions, and together find a way to set up baby step goals, while stepping out of the box and see what this very client wants and needs. S/he is maybe asking for something that’s not in your textbook, and you may have a suggestion that your client never heard of. So work together. As you have the tools, but we have the experience. 😉
Keep them talking
Anita