Public Speaking - Senior Speech

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Re: Public Speaking-Senior Speech

From: David Dwyer
Date: 22 Oct 2009
Time: 16:37:53 -0500
Remote Name: 199.111.186.108

Comments

I think that the most frustrating thing about speech therapy, especially when I was younger, was that I expected an hour session every week to cure my speech. In reality, there is no cure. And, I had to try to actively employ what I had learned in order to get anywhere--you almost have to be your own therapist at some point. I didn’t realize this at first, and as a beginning SLP it is an important distinction to make--especially to your older clients. The techniques one learns can be awkward, and it is hard to use them in everyday situations because they seem to interrupt the "natural" flow of conversation, though no more than a stutter does! Thus, practicing them during therapy and even being put in a potentially awkward situation during therapy was important in gaining confidence to use them in real life. Being treated as a client and not a patient, actually learning techniques to do while caught in a stutter, and having the ability to work on things I thought I needed help with, gave me confidence to speak. The most difficult, but most useful technique I use is to simply relax. I can normally tell if a word will make me stutter before I say it, so I subtly try to change my speech before it to ease into the troublesome word. Firstly, I try to relax my throat. Then, I slow my speech, while maintaining a constant, steady breathing pattern. If I do this, I can normally progress through the problematic word fluently. If the word starts with a hard sound, like a "t," you can almost slur the end of the previous word into it. If it is a bad day then I will just substitute for a synonym, though this is a last resort since it doesn't help you practice, and there wont always be an apt substitute. These certainly are not the most advanced techniques out there, but they were the ones I first learned and have practiced the most over the years.


Last changed: 10/22/09