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“Old School” Speech Therapy
“What is this?” “Say Apple!”
What is this? Say lettuce.
(yawn)
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As a speech language pathology student years ago, I could never really get the gist of language therapy, because there was not an expert readily available who could really teach us about speech and language stimulation especially with children who did not talk, or adults who had lost the ability to speak due to trauma or neurological insult. We were taught the theory, and few, actual procedures.
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| People with difficulty speaking typically do better in speaking tasks when engaged in interesting topics of conversation. Is your name Brad? Are you married? How many kids? Are you an engineer? |
Through the years I had the opportunity to watch speech and language therapy being done with people who had lost the ability to speak and was often surprised that what was being done, was the exact thing I had done as a student or beginning speech language pathologist. I can actually remember feeling tired: (yawn), since I would often get very sleepy doing this therapy and I can honestly say that the feeling was mutual by the person with whom I was working.
With experience and great dissatisfaction with confrontational naming tasks and hand-out sheets I finally came across procedures that were actually fun and I could stimulate speech and language while talking with the person especially about interests (discourse), rather than boring and redundant tasks of identifying single word pictures that often had no functional use in normal, everyday conversation. Trying to correct speaking with those techniques was just NOT FUN! (for anyone concerned!)
There has been little research about the use of confrontational naming in the speech pathology literature, but there have been some enlightened investigators who found that those with aphasia tend to speak more readily when they are spoken to in discourse (talking) in a way that stimulates interesting language that is at an appropriate level of difficulty in comparison to those who are asked to do confrontational naming tasks. To me confrontational naming is not stimulating speech and language and has nothing to do with talking or discourse. It is confrontational and typically sets up increased stress, anxiousness and frustration.
The Teaching of Talking, an approach to speech and language stimulation and is the result of over 40 years of my life’s work with children and adult neuro-patients and those who have difficulty speaking. It is a relaxed and fun way to stimulate speech in discourse or conversation that can really give the person with speaking difficulty and their loved one or caregiver a better chance for speaking recovery. What is so amazing about the method is that if the person with the speaking difficulty can imitate or mimic words, phrases or sentences, they can be included in any conversation with one or more people. It is a way to get the person with the speaking difficulty talking, even if it is cued. One can be comical, serious or fun-loving in the approach to helping others speak, very much like the interchange of speech and language for normal speakers. It is natural, and involves speaking, without the use of digital or augmentative devices. It is a method, however which requires a loved one or caregiver, to provide the words necessary in the moment to make a request or to answer a simple question. The person with the speaking difficulty must be able to say a syllable, word or phrase in response. With daily repetition spontaneous speech and language have a better chance to re-emerge.
To find out more about the Teaching of Talking, kindly go to our website at http://www.teachingoftalking.com or call me to find out about our telephone conferences which help in the learning of procedures for loved ones, caregivers, and speech language pathologists. Our next telephone conference for caregivers and loved ones and SLP’s is starting the first week of July. We are only opening the telephone conference to teach 6 people in this session. I will do 5 one hour classes with the group of 6 people. The price for the 5 session telephone conference is $99.99. You will need a written copy of The Teaching of Talking for reference during the teleconference. To integrate the material as soon as possible many people elect the book and audio program so that they can read the material and then listen again in activities such as walking, exercising etc. from digital device.
I can also be reached by telephone at 832-233-2601. We are currently on tour with our book “The Teaching of Talking,” and will be available to return your e mails or telephone calls. We have the Teaching of Talking available online through our website: http://www.teachingoftalking.com in both printed word and audio recording.
I am also available to mentor individually, should you wish to become proficient with the Teaching of Talking Method.
We have 3 people signed up as of this date, so if you are interesed in joining us, please let me know as soon as possible.
Mark A. Ittleman, M.S., CCC/SLP
Speech Language Pathologist-Author
E Mail: markittleman@teachingoftalking.com
Website: http://www.teachingoftalking.com
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