What to Expect During Speech Evaluation for Therapy in Adults?

Speech pathology therapists work with patients with several oral issues and speech disorders. Speech therapy for adults is rendered by efficient therapists in Chennai who help in resolving general communication, language, swallowing, voice, throat, and tongue disorders. In the article below, let us see what adults must expect from their speech therapy sessions. By knowing in detail about the evaluation procedures, patients can reduce their stress and anxiety levels, which anyone generally experiences before a treatment procedure.

Speech Therapy for Adults- Reasons & What to Expect

Dysphasia & Swallowing Issues

There are certain health conditions like cancer and other neurological problems that can impact the lip, tongue, jaw, larynx, and throat movements. As a result, it affects the chewing, speaking, and swallowing activities. A speech therapist will be able to offer the right speech therapy for adults and help them regain their speech in case of dysphasia. When patients have problems with swallowing, they will be provided with food to swallow as a part of the swallowing test. Meanwhile, the therapist watches how the patient's mouth and throat work through a monitor. This monitoring procedure makes use of X-rays to record real-time images.

Stuttering

Stuttering is a common speech problem that makes a person repeat words, have difficulty pronouncing, and stretch them out. Emotional feelings can impact stuttering problems and may worsen with excitement or tension. Speech therapy for adults with stuttering problems focuses more on overcoming their fears and practicing ways to minimize stuttering. The therapist will guide the patient to resolve the issue by asking them to practice the sound that is challenging for them to pronounce.

Acquired Apraxia

Apraxia is a language inability and impairment of speech caused due to brain injuries. In most cases, adults who have recovered from trauma and stroke are seen to exhibit this condition. These patients have difficulty pronouncing specific words correctly with inconsistencies while speaking and committing errors while finding the right word. Speech therapy for adults is the best solution to help patients with acquired apraxia regain their speaking ability.

Also Read: What to Expect From a Speech Therapy?

Dysarthria

Adults with weak, damaged, or paralyzed speech muscles exhibit a motor speech disorder known as dysarthria. It leads to difficulty in communicating and makes the patient's speech slurred. Thus, therapists teach to communicate during speech therapy for adults when the patients have no control over their vocal cords, larynx, or tongue to form words.

Aphasia

Partial or total loss of speech ability is called Aphasia. These patients have difficulty processing a language because of a brain injury. Therefore, they do not read, speak and write like any normal person. The most common symptoms of aphasia are trouble naming objects, mixing up words, speaking only single words or short phrases, and having difficulty putting words together. In this condition, speech therapy for adults helps re-training the brain to improve both comprehension and communication skills.

All You Need to Know About Intake Interview in Speech Therapy for Adults

Adults undergo an evaluation process before commencing their speech therapy sessions for various reasons, as discussed above. Their therapies are performed by speech-language pathologists who create a customized plan for every individual after assessing them thoroughly. The first step is the intake interview, which is crucial for the entire speech therapy for adults. The sole purpose of an intake interview is to gather every single detail about the patient. It helps in understanding the patient's strengths, weaknesses, and current communication status.

Most importantly, the intake interview helps in knowing how the communication problems in patients impact their daily lives. All the reputed speech therapy centers in Chennai allow their therapists to access the patient's medical history, employment details, educational qualifications, linguistic background, and past therapies. By doing all this, eventually, what the patient hopes to get from the speech therapy becomes transparent to the SPLs which is essential to set goals.

Evaluation Procedures Before Speech Therapy for Adults

Oral Mechanism Examination

Oral mechanism examination assesses the function and structure of the tongue, teeth, lips, and soft palate that support speech. An adult will be asked to move the tongue from side to side, open the mouth wide, produce the sound 'ah', and raise the tongue to reach the nose. Thus, this will be the next primary evaluation done immediately after the intake interview before organizing speech therapy for adults.

Articulation/Phonology

The sounds produced with the mouth are called articulation, and how the patient spells words is called phonology. This particular assessment aims to find whether the individual has any difficulty in speaking particular words, sounds, or phrases. Before commencing speech therapy for adults, patients are always asked to name objects and repeat words or lengthy phrases of different complexities during a standardized evaluation step.

Voice Assessment

Voice comprises loudness, resonance, pitch, prosody, and speech quality. When there is a neurological condition, voice assessment and voice pathology are compulsory before starting speech therapy for adults to check for cysts or nodules. This process cannot be done without the help of otolaryngologists as they determine the etiology of the vocals. The SPLs will then have a one-on-one discussion with the patients to know how they use their voice, compare it with other people through computerized software and make laryngeal imaging.

Fluency Assessment

Fluency is the fluidity of speech. While assessing the fluency, a stuttering severity instrument is used to check for stutter problems. An open-ended question session will be organized before speech therapy for adults, and the patient will be instructed to describe picture scenes, narrate a story or read passages.

Language & Cognition Assessment

Receptive language is the ability of an individual to understand language, and expressive language is the ability to use language. Language is beyond spoken words and encompasses gestures, facial expressions, and written words. Cognition is attention, memory, executive function, problem solving, perception, judgment, and reasoning. Language and cognition assessments are conducted prior to every speech therapy for adults and includes standardized tests conducted for diagnosing Aphasia along with cognitive-linguistic quick tests.

Summing It Up
Finally, the speech-language pathologists discuss the results with the patients once everything is evaluated. They share the information on findings, observations, and recommendations. Patients will be allowed to question and clear their doubts towards the end. JOGO uses digital therapeutics to offer the best speech therapy for adults in Chennai by combining technological advancements, making the treatment more effective.

Holistic Speech Therapies

A variety of advanced speech-therapy treatments are available at JOGO Chennai for both children and adults with neurodevelopmental disorders.

BOOK AN APPOINTMENT

1/1,11th Cross st., Shastri Nagar, Adyar, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600020.

envelopephone-handsetmap-markercross linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram