Today marks the beginning of Speech Pathology Week.
The theme of Speech Pathology Week this year is Communicating with Confidence.
At HenderCare, our experienced speech pathologists will work with you to achieve your communication goals and help you ‘communicate with confidence’. We do this by talking to you about how your communication is now, what you would like to be able to do better and what is most important to you in your life.
One of our speech pathologists recently worked with a lady from a culturally and linguistically diverse background, who has visual deficits and severe expressive communication difficulties following a stroke several years ago.
This individual identified that she loves to go out to have coffee with her support staff but usually must rely on someone else ordering for her. The speech pathologist worked with the client to assess the types of pictures that she could see most clearly and completed a communication board for her client to use to communicate with her care staff, as well as a card with her usual coffee ordered on it.
In time, these pictures will be utilised on a pre-recorded speech communication device with the speech messages recorded by the client’s sister in English and the family’s primary language. This will ensure that the speech messages are culturally, linguistically, and personally acceptable to the client.
The client shared that she had tried a communication device in the past but had abandoned it as the voice did not sound like her. On her next outing, the client was able to use the coffee request card provided on her next outing and was able to order her own coffee for the first time in years.
Speech Pathology Week is all about highlighting the role of speech pathologists and the importance of finding the right tools and support for each individual with a communication disability to give them the confidence to communicate in their community.