Benefits of Speech Therapy
What is speech therapy?
Speech therapy is a form of therapy specially designed to help individuals suffering from speech and voice disorders to easily, effectively and in most cases, fluently communicate with other individuals.
Performed by licensed professionals, there are numerous tools and exercises employed to help patients improve their condition.
Why might one need speech therapy?
There are quite a few speech and voice disorders that can require an individual to need speech therapy. The most common reasons for such disorders are congenital and developmental insufficiencies in the voice box and/or the speech muscles, cognitive or neurological dysfunction, and trauma. Some prominent speech and voice disorders are:
- Articulations disorders
- Apraxia of speech
- Dysarthria
- Fluency disorders e.g. stuttering
- Voice disorders
- Feeding/swallowing disorders
- Resonance disorders
- Receptive disorders
- Cognitive communication disorders
- Expressive disorder
- Aphasia
Goals of speech therapy
The main goal of speech therapy is to improve communication. This might be achieved by:
- Improved coordination between speech muscles by using strengthening and coordination exercises and sound repetition and imitation
- Improvement of coordination between brain and body using visual and auditory aids
- Breathing exercises to help improve fluency
- Enhanced language learning using positive reinforcement
- Improvement in communication by teaching the subject to employ non-verbal means of communication such as gestures and augmentative devices.
Benefits of speech therapy
For an individual with speech and/or voice disorders, speech therapy can bring about a host of benefits, especially for children since their ability to seamlessly and effectively communicate, or the lack thereof can have significant implications for their quality of life as well as their professional life.
Some prominent advantages to availing speech therapy are as follows:
1. Improved speech and communication
Speech therapy can help improve a person’s ability to express and communicate thoughts and emotions in a better and more effective way, thereby helping improve the overall quality of life.
2. Intelligible speech in children
In children, speech impediments can hamper them from communicating with individuals other than parents or immediate family. Speech therapy can help remove or at least lower that barrier.
3. Improved swallowing
The strength and coordination exercises used in speech therapy can also help improve the tone and function of the muscles involved in swallowing. This can make the act of swallowing safer for an individual, especially in children, which helps minimise the risk of choking.
4. Increased independence
When effectively and appropriately used, speech therapy can increase a person’s independence since an individual with a speech impediment will obviously have trouble communicating with strangers. With speech therapy, that barrier can be removed, enhancing a person’s level of independence.
5. Development of pre-literacy skills
In children, speech therapy can help speed up the development of pre-literacy skills, especially communication skills since they’re comfortable and know their way around a learning-focused environment.
6. Better education and school readiness
This is also relevant to children. When speech therapy is used to improve a child’s communication skills, it also helps boost their cognitive and reception of communication from another individual such as a teacher in this case.
7.Improved practical social skills
Social skills are heavily dependent on a person’s communication skills. Since with speech therapy, an individual can achieve better communication, that means that they are bound to see an improvement in their practical social skills useful in daily and professional life.
8.Improved vocal quality and fluent speech
The exercises used in speech therapy, especially the ones involving strengthening and repetition for the speech muscles and voice respectively, can enhance the overall quality of speech as well the vocal quality of a person. This helps them better integrate into society as functional and useful members.
9. Greater self-esteem
Speech therapy can help boost a person’s self-esteem greatly. Since a lack of communication skills can have a profoundly negative effect on an individual’s self-esteem, improvement in their communication skills significantly helps raise their self-esteem to a higher point, especially in children.
10. Better quality of life
Speech therapy can ensure an individual has a better quality of life, owing to improved communication skills that boost self-esteem and independence, as well as fewer or no health complications, all leading towards a better and easier overall life for the individual.
Drawbacks to speech therapy
As with everything, speech therapy is not without some disadvantages that you will have to consider and work through if you or someone you know needs speech therapy:
1.Practical concerns
Speech therapy can be very time-consuming for both a child and a parent. Sessions can take a lot of time and need to be carried out timely and frequently. This can place even more stress on a child’s family already trying to cope with a speech disorder.
2. Outcome
While generally effective, speech therapy can sometimes promise more than it can deliver. In developing a speech therapy program, it is important to set a realistic set of expectations with the therapist. Periodic evaluation of the patient’s quality of life can help recalibrate the therapy program to a reasonable amount of expectation.
3. Cost
Private speech therapy may raise a cost concern since health insurance varies throughout the world. It would be useful to check if your specific type of health insurance covers speech therapy, and for which conditions.
Conclusion
Speech therapy can be a very valuable tool in improving an individual’s communication skills and quality of life, as well as independence and self-esteem. However, there are a few factors that need consideration before someone avails of this therapy.