Stroke Speech Therapy

Speech therapy is another common therapy after stroke.  A speech therapist or speech pathologist will assess your speaking ability and practice specific words, sounds and other speaking skills with you.

Some speech language pathologists are also able to help with swallowing difficulties and social skills after stroke.

Again with speech therapy, the tip is practice, practice, practice. 

Family and friends can help with speech practice when your therapist is not around.  Have your family find out from your speech therapist what they can do to help you with your activities.  Make sure they are present in appointments so they remember the activities themselves. 

Then go home and practice!  This will help you to recover your speech much faster than if you just wait for appointments or practice the minimum your speech therapist recommends.

The strength of speech therapy is that for many stroke survivors, with alot of practice and dedication, it pays off and creates good speech recovery.  It's also incorporated in to most therapy programs, and is covered to a great degree by health insurance.

A weakness is that not all types of speech loss after stroke are helped by speech therapy.  Stroke survivors with global aphasia usually can't be helped by standard speech therapy.  Mild and moderate forms of aphasia usually are, but even then sometimes stroke survivors don't progress as much as hoped. 

If you're one of these people, or your loved one is, don't give up!  There are other techniques for regaining speech that help stroke survivors such as the sensory trigger method.