Over 50? Keeping Up With Your Healthcare Needs

Been Diagnosed With Aphasia? How A Speech Pathologist Can Help You

1 July 2022

Nellie Ryan

Aphasia is the inability to speak, read, write, follow conversations, problem naming common objects, and much more. If you have been diagnosed with this, a speech pathologist can help you with your speech problems. Below are some different treatments they will offer you so you can converse with people in the future. 

Individual and Group Treatment

The speech pathologist will work with you one on one. They may give you words on a piece of paper that you will need to match to pictures or pictures to match to words. The speech pathologist may give you a list of words and ask you if any of them rhyme. The doctor may say a word and ask you to repeat it or if you have the ability, they will ask you to repeat sentences they say. The doctor may have you practice making telephone calls to friends or family members. The pathologist may have you draw a picture of something you would like to say but cannot. For example, you may want to say the word dog but not be able to say it so you will draw a picture of a dog instead. 

The speech pathologist may suggest you work in a group of other people having the same problem as you. All of you can practice speaking with each other, which can show how well you can communicate. Oftentimes, family members also come to group therapy to learn how to communicate well with someone that has aphasia. 

Other Therapies

There are many other therapies that can be used. The speech pathologist may give you a letter chart for you to use. If you want to say something, you can point to each letter to spell out words and sentences. The chart may also have pictures that you can point to when trying to say something. 

There are electronic devices that can be used to communicate. This is known as voice output communication (VOC). This is a device where you type in what you want to say, and the device speaks it for you in a computer-generated voice. This works well for someone that can type but has problems speaking. You will also find many apps that you can install on your smartphone that works in much the same way. 

It is very important that if you choose to use an electronic device or an app that you work with your speech pathologist instead of doing this on your own. 

The speech pathologist can give you much more information on aphasia and treatment options. For more information, contact a company like Eastern Carolina ENT Head & Neck Surgery.

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