I&#x27;m a Speech and Language Therapist, AMA!

OP

Original post by Sharmarko

Can you gain a stutter/stammer from the ages of 12+ after never having it as a child?

Yes you can. Generally at a younger age it's called a developmental stammer. After your early childhood it's often an acquired stammer. This can be something which is impacted by a number factors e.g. anxiety, trauma (like a car crash). There is support/therapy avaliable for both types :yep:

Reply 5

OP

Original post by As.1997

I'm looking to gain some hospital experience. I would very much appreciate if there was a way for me to get involved. So my question is are there any particular hospital/schools/clinics that you would recommend that I apply too?

It's hard for me to suggest specific hospitals as my experience was only in the midlands. I emailed the local Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) department at my local hospital to organise some shadowing. I also applied to get some more general hospital experience at a local rehabilitation hospital through a programme during A Levels through school I think it was. Each hospital will be different but I would email/phone around and try and contact specific departments if you can :smile:

Reply 6

As.1997

16

There's a hospital near my area but they told me to apply for roles through a website, which I have done so but I don't seem to be getting any response. Should I keep pushing them via phone/email to try to get a place?

Original post by BurstingBubbles

It's hard for me to suggest specific hospitals as my experience was only in the midlands. I emailed the local Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) department at my local hospital to organise some shadowing. I also applied to get some more general hospital experience at a local rehabilitation hospital through a programme during A Levels through school I think it was. Each hospital will be different but I would email/phone around and try and contact specific departments if you can :smile:

Reply 7

shadowdweller

Volunteer Section Leader

21

What's the toughest case you've worked on?

Reply 8

OP

Original post by black tea

What does your job involve?

For quite a niche career there are a lot of areas we cover. Even within working with children I work with children on their speech sounds, understanding, use of language, and interaction (e.g. children with Autism). It can vary from working on specific speech sounds in a clinic to working on interaction with other children and adults in a school/nursery setting.

When I worked with adults I helped adults with both swallowing difficulties (yes we cover that too!) and communication with conditions such as strokes, neuro trauma e.g. after a car crash/head injury, dementia, Parkinson's Disease. Depending on their condition it will depending on what we work on. An example may include helping them with word finding difficulties whereby they may take a lot longer to think of the right word or may say the wrong word all together. We use techniques such as sorting words into categories, talking around the word (known as semantic cues) and giving them the first letter/sound(s) of the word (known as phonemic cue) - we use this with children as well as adults. Let me know if you want any more info about any of that :smile:

Reply 9

OP

Original post by As.1997

There's a hospital near my area but they told me to apply for roles through a website, which I have done so but I don't seem to be getting any response. Should I keep pushing them via phone/email to try to get a place?

I would give them a ring or drop them an email, not in a pushy way but in a 'showing you're interested/keen' way :tongue:

perhaps talk about what you can offer, even seemingly small things like taking to the patients and making them a cuppa - this will help staff a lot! :smile:

Reply 10

Notoriety

22

Original post by BurstingBubbles

Yes you can. Generally at a younger age it's called a developmental stammer. After your early childhood it's often an acquired stammer. This can be something which is impacted by a number factors e.g. anxiety, trauma (like a car crash). There is support/therapy avaliable for both types :yep:

@CoolCavy rep'd you, BB?

Reply 11

As.1997

16

Good shout. Thanks :smile:

Original post by BurstingBubbles

I would give them a ring or drop them an email, not in a pushy way but in a 'showing you're interested/keen' way :tongue:

perhaps talk about what you can offer, even seemingly small things like taking to the patients and making them a cuppa - this will help staff a lot! :smile:

Reply 12

CuriosityYay

19

Do you help people who have trouble pronouncing letter R?

If so how?

Reply 13

Lottie_28

13

I’m pretty set on taking bio, chem and then either business or psychology at A-level but I’m still undecided as to whether I want to do medicine (dermatology) or Speech and language therapy. Would the A level combination work for both? Xx

Original post by BurstingBubbles

As per the thread title: I'm a Speech and Language Therapist, ask me anything (AMA)... well almost anything!

I graduated coming up to 2 years ago and I have worked both with adults in a hospital and children in mainstream schools/clinics. I currently work with children.

I think it's quite a niche career but it's slowly becoming more well known, so ask away :biggrin:

Reply 14

OP

Original post by shadowdweller

What's the toughest case you've worked on?

Children: when they have a lot of different needs and it's prioritising what to work on first. For example a child who has difficulty with interaction with others but also difficulties with language and their speech sounds. Ordinarily we would work on interaction first however for some children their difficulties with their speech and language can impact on their interaction. It's also very tricky when parents are not engaged in the service and/or school don't have the support time to support the child. Sadly due to service provisions we can't see them every day/week, so we need someone close to the child to work with. If this is not in place often it's not the best time to offer support and therefore we sadly have to discharge the child and ask them to be rereferred when they have more time to support them.

Adults: often end of life discussions e.g. feed at risk decisions were tricky. Of course patients passing away too. The fast paced environment was tricky but I did enjoy being able to see patients more often e.g. every other day due to it being an acute environment. I did miss seeing their progress over all e.g. when they were discharged to a rehabilitation hospital.

There's certainly pros and cons to working with different client groups/in different settings - but at the end of the day being able to offer help and support, no matter how small, is always good :smile:

Reply 15

OP

Original post by Notoriety

@CoolCavy rep'd you, BB?

Nah, I'm just so popular :innocent:

Just kidding yes that is certainly a positive glitch :tongue:

Reply 16

OP

Original post by CuriosityYay

Do you help people who have trouble pronouncing letter R?

If so how?

We don't often work on it unless it's really affecting how clear their speech is (often r being pronounces as w doesn't). Since I work for the NHS we have a certain criteria people have to meet and r doesn't often meet that, especially for most children as it's one of the last sounds to develop.

To work on it (as a teenager/adult) I would practise trying to get the 'r' sound by itself e.g. using a mirror. Then progress doing the following:

- Practise it with a vowel before/after e.g. ree, row
- Practise it in short words e.g. rope
- Practise it in multiple syllabic (longer words) e.g. rhinoceros
- Practise it in phrases/sentences e.g. I see a rope
- Practise multiple 'r' words in a sentence e.g. I see a red rope in the river
- Practise it when telling stories and in conversations

Only move onto the next step when the previous step is consistent. It's very unlikely you can go from using a 'r' sound in isolation (by itself) to suddenly using it in conversation.

Hope that helps :smile:

Reply 17

PhoenixFortune

21

I completed my SLT degree in 2014, but I decided to not enter the profession in the end (for many reasons). I also wasn't the only one who made this decision in my cohort.

I'm curious to know how many of your university cohort actually ended up working as a SLT, or whether many chose other career paths like in my experience?

Reply 18

OP

I would pronounce it as the first, but it depends on accents. It's unlikely many people would say a 'r' at the end. If you transcribe speech as 'er' it's not like saying errr (which is a vowel sound transcribed as /ə/) it means you add a full 'r' sound on the end.

I don't really have any that annoy me because it's very accent dependant and we would never correct accents. Are there any that annoy you? :tongue:

Reply 19

OP