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From: Bobby
Date: 21 Oct 2009
Time: 01:28:21 -0500
Remote Name: 71.228.119.75
Nicole: I first started speech therapy about 43 years ago in a very small town in the southwest. The therapy was what it was; I don’t fault anyone for it. Back in the 1960’s and early 1970’s therapy was directed at correcting the speech, not helping the person with the speech problem. Now speech therapy is more “person centered” than “speech centered” as SLP’s have increased their knowledge of the human psyche and methods to increase fluency. Being “people centered” on speech therapy no matter what the cause is, allows the client to be more actively involved with the SLP on the direction the therapy goes. When I had my therapy at NMSU, my student SLP’s took me outside of the clinic to order food at the Student Union Building, to various other places on campus forcing me to talk to people I normally would have avoided like the plague. They all ignored my protests, and now I’m glad they did. But to me the biggest thing they did for me while helping me improve my speech was to treat me like I counted as a person, I wasn’t just a number on a folder. That helped more than anything in my opinion.