It occurred to me today that if I ever want to move beyond code monkey I am going to need to drastically improve my communications skills, both written and spoken. The written doesn't seem as hard to do, however my speech skills are really bad, probably at least in part due to a brain injury suffered at birth. I was considering getting a speech therapist, but I was wondering if anyone here had any experiences with them. Can they really help you out more than say a book?
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Anyone ever use a speech therapist?
- Thread starter foidulus
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I don't have any direct personal experience although a close friend of mine had a stammer when we were quite a lot younger and he went to a speech therapist. It significantly improved his speech to the point where you would never know if you spoke to him today. 
I hope you can work out your issues whether it be through therapy or alternative means.
I hope you can work out your issues whether it be through therapy or alternative means.
Do you have a diagnosable *speech* disorder, involving dysarthria or hypophonia or hyper or hyponasality or something like that, or do you have a *language* problem?
If you have a speech disorder, I can't see a book doing anything for you. ST is the way to go. I've never been a patient, but I've worked professionally with them as colleagues a lot (particularly in the context of kids with craniofacial anomalies, who almost always do ST). They can help you understand what exactly is going on with your speech and how you can adapt yourself to improve the understandability and the quality of tone, and probably any ST that you find easy to work with interpersonally or professionally is great.
If you have a primarily *language* disorder -- meaning you can pronounce most words just fine and make the normal range of pitches, tones, volumes, etc, but you have difficulty putting together content and expressing yourself, then fewer people in this area are skilled in that kind of intervention. You probably want to work with a speech and language center or communicative disorders center that specializes in acquired brain injuries -- they do this kind of work commonly with stroke patients and also sometimes with TBI patients. These centers also work with people with dyslexias, although ideally if you can find one that deals with acquired rather than developmental problems, it would be better, since that's the boat you fall into. An eval by a school psychologist or neuropsychologist might also be good if you have not had one to understand specifically what your language disorder consists of.
Does the difference between a speech disorder and a language disorder make any sense to you? Since you say you have problems with writing too, it doesn't really sound like a speech disorder, unless you mean two (or more) separate things.
If you have a speech disorder, I can't see a book doing anything for you. ST is the way to go. I've never been a patient, but I've worked professionally with them as colleagues a lot (particularly in the context of kids with craniofacial anomalies, who almost always do ST). They can help you understand what exactly is going on with your speech and how you can adapt yourself to improve the understandability and the quality of tone, and probably any ST that you find easy to work with interpersonally or professionally is great.
If you have a primarily *language* disorder -- meaning you can pronounce most words just fine and make the normal range of pitches, tones, volumes, etc, but you have difficulty putting together content and expressing yourself, then fewer people in this area are skilled in that kind of intervention. You probably want to work with a speech and language center or communicative disorders center that specializes in acquired brain injuries -- they do this kind of work commonly with stroke patients and also sometimes with TBI patients. These centers also work with people with dyslexias, although ideally if you can find one that deals with acquired rather than developmental problems, it would be better, since that's the boat you fall into. An eval by a school psychologist or neuropsychologist might also be good if you have not had one to understand specifically what your language disorder consists of.
Does the difference between a speech disorder and a language disorder make any sense to you? Since you say you have problems with writing too, it doesn't really sound like a speech disorder, unless you mean two (or more) separate things.
Just out of curiosity, is your difficulty only in speech or do you have motor problems too. My 6-yr old has both and my 10-month old is showing signs of motor issues (too soon for speech) and we can't actually figure out what is going on.
As to the speech therapist they have done wonders with my 6-yr old. He couldn't speak much at all until 3 and has been improving from non-verbal to verbal, but hard to understand, to understandable about 90% of the time by most people. I can't really help you pick one, though, as my 6-yr old's have been through programs for children and the school district so I haven't had to select a private therapist yet. But I do know that they can help.
As to the speech therapist they have done wonders with my 6-yr old. He couldn't speak much at all until 3 and has been improving from non-verbal to verbal, but hard to understand, to understandable about 90% of the time by most people. I can't really help you pick one, though, as my 6-yr old's have been through programs for children and the school district so I haven't had to select a private therapist yet. But I do know that they can help.
When I was about 6, 7 or so I used to say "pwopellor", it was very selective though. I could still say my R's. Anyways my parents took me to a speech therapist and fixed it all. Too young to really remember what happened but I do recall it only taking a few months and basically had to rebuild a lot of the way I spoke.