Without people being able to communicate with one another, where would the world be today? We can all agree that the ability to communicate is a vital skill that can drastically impact your life. So, regardless of your age, as soon as you notice your speech or hearing (or your loved one’s) is not what it should be, it’s important to get it checked out.
Speech therapists, also known as speech-language pathologists, typically focus on aiding people with difficulty communicating. Whether their difficulties stem from developmental disorders, delays in language development, inadequate social skills, or medical conditions, they’re there to help develop and improve people’s communication skills.
What Do Speech Therapists Do?
Speech therapists help individuals with communication difficulties improve their skills and achieve their goals. This is done by assessing the cause and severity of the issue and implementing various activities and techniques to help clients. These may include breath control exercises, muscle movement therapy, and pronunciation practice. They also provide professional advice for managing communication difficulties in daily life.
What To Expect In Speech Therapy
When you first see your speech therapist, they’ll evaluate your strengths and difficulties with communication and speech. This will help them discern whether the issue is due to structural issues or not. The evaluation may involve a standardized test and informal conversations to help identify your needs.
Throughout speech therapy, you should be prepared to practice the skills and exercises learned in the sessions at home. In addition to this, your speech-language pathologist may provide you with worksheets, workbooks, or even apps to help you practice at home.
What Are The Benefits Of Speech Therapy?
By investing in speech therapy, even clients with limited language skills may reap the benefits, some of which include:
Improved understanding of language
Speech therapy is a life-changer for anyone who has difficulty understanding language, from youngsters to seniors. It can drastically improve people’s ability to understand verbal communication. Speech-language pathologists command a great variety of techniques to help their clients better their communication skills, however, most focus primarily on auditory training, word recognition, and sight reading exercises, amongst others.
Improved articulation
Speech therapists, like those at Hear & Say, are trained to understand exactly how the mouth needs to move to help you improve your speech clarity. Speech therapists will often have their clients engage in vocal exercises and articulatory drills to help them become more proficient at pronunciation. Through consistent practice, hard-to-say syllables become easier to pronounce, and individuals grasp how to correctly place emphasis on certain words for optimized understanding.
Improved Interpersonal Skills
Investing time in your speech development has undeniably positive effects on your quality of life, as improving your communication skills will ultimately improve your social functioning. Better communication skills lead to improved interpersonal experiences and the ability to build meaningful relationships. Over time, you should see an improvement in your ability to communicate better with your family, friends, and coworkers.
Improved Self-Regulation
One benefit that many individuals who attend speech therapy have experienced is that when their verbal communication skills improve, they are able to express their feelings more easily and accurately. Certain techniques learned from speech therapy can help you navigate stressful or difficult conversations, such as conflict resolution. These skills can be used to maneuver any situation one may find themselves in with more ease.
Enhanced Cognitive Functioning
Another brilliant benefit of speech therapy that clients may experience is enhanced cognitive functioning. Speech therapists have their clients engage in targeted activities designed to stimulate parts of the brain responsible for language and executive functioning and focus on improving:
- Problem-solving skills
- Reasoning Ability
- Attention span
It’s suggested that the result is that individuals may experience a greater capacity for thought processing overall. Most will see an improvement in their ability to reason, react faster in challenging situations, plan ahead, accurately recall important information, and organise their thoughts into logical sequences.
Boosted Confidence
The beauty of attending speech therapy is that by individuals seeing an improvement and reaping all the benefits, they gain an understanding that your speech doesn’t have to be perfect for you to live a full life. There’s no denying that an improved understanding of language can also give individuals greater confidence and self-assertion. Those who once were too nervous to share their thoughts suddenly start embracing conversations confidently.
Final Thoughts
While the main goal of attending speech therapy is to help you improve your verbal communication, there are so many other benefits that come along with attending these sessions. So, if you’re in need of speech therapy, don’t second guess it because the sooner you start, the sooner you can reap the rewards.
Jessica has a flair for writing engaging blogs and articles. She enjoys reading and learning new things which enables her to write different topics and fields with ease. She also strives to break down complex concepts and make them easy for anybody to comprehend.
