By Melissa Zuniga, Communication Specialist
Through all walks of life, a person will come across many diverse levels of communication. From a newborn cry, to babbling, to baby talk, to gestures, to those first words, to then sentences and all the way up to full conversations-communication is worldwide. Emotions are expressed nonverbally and verbally and communication entails both. Every child is hungry for attention, full of imagination, and born for a special purpose. The steps towards reaching that special purpose and expressing emotions begin with communication.
Last year, I took a course called Introduction to Communication Studies. I learned many of the theories, strategies, and research that relate to both public and private communication and how it relates to us in everyday life. The course was designed and especially focused on how college students should prepare themselves according to their personal goals, course of academic study, and eventual professional career. But the tips and concepts I learned could be applied to my personal life and the career of Speech Language Pathology that I am planning to embark on. Life certainly is a journey and I feel more than ready and happier than ever to be where I’m at right now. Now, after much contemplation and transitioning into what my special purpose is in life, I feel I’m in the right place. There is nothing that can brighten up my day more than finally seeing a child express what they’ve been wanting to for so long and with much excitement and ease.
After observing many one-on-one speech therapy sessions with different therapists and children with unique abilities, I realized there is a correlation between the principles I learned in my Introduction to Communication Studies and the methods used in speech therapy sessions with the intention that those same principles are passed on to the children. Speech Language Pathology encompasses many of the areas of Communication Studies and it is extremely valuable to observe it firsthand and see the connection between them. A Speech Language Pathologist’s main goal is to see progress with each therapy session, whether it is verbal or nonverbal, and as long as there is progression with expression of wants and needs.
Speech Language Pathology covers the foundational principles of communication theory such as perception, language and verbal symbols, nonverbal activities, and listening while the therapists apply those principles through various levels of communicating such as interpersonal, small group, organizational, and leadership. The hope of each therapist is to see each patient grow to their full potential by applying the principles learned in therapy into effective public speaking.
The main element of the communication process that takes place in speech therapy is the interactional view where both speakers and receivers have a chance for feedback and an opportunity to respond. This form of interaction involves direct channels of communication through the auditory, visual, electronic, or tactile channels and the message is controlled directly by the therapist using words and facial expressions and indirectly using body language. The therapist must pay close attention to many of the feedback cues the child sends both verbally and nonverbally and accommodate therapy according to the child’s needs and level of development.
Speech Language Pathology is very closely related to health communication because the main focus of therapy is to see improvement in the quality of life and health of individuals within the community. The professional aspect of the Speech Language Pathology field involves the various levels of communicating such as interpersonal communication because the therapists work closely with both the parents of the patient and the patient to gain intimacy, greater understanding, and advanced progress. The field of Speech Language Pathology is marked by small group communication because therapy usually involves one-on-one interaction and various stages in therapy ending with improved performance that reaches certain goals. Speech Language Pathology contains organizational communication because the therapists work closely with each other in the workplace through the consultation, screening, assessment and treatment of each patient. Leadership is also very evident in the field of Speech Therapy because each therapist is highly motivated and self-directed working towards the goals they want to achieve for each patient.
Technology is a very important venue of communication in today’s world so speech therapy also incorporates aspects of technology into therapy sessions with educational toys and games and innovative techniques to evoke better memorization and improvement in the many facets of communication disorders.
Speech Language Pathologists work with patients to accomplish a sense of confidence and ability to express themselves effectively in the public forum and also in their personal lives by using exercises such as practicing oratory skills, use of gestures, controlling the tone of voice (congruency), using a loud and clear voice, and expanding vocabulary. The therapists exemplify these very same skills in therapy so as to have the patients emulate and learn by observation and practice. The most important resemblance between Communication Studies and Speech Therapy is the study of language. Children in therapy learn many important elements of language such as symbols, concepts, clichés, relative words, absolute words, abstract words, concrete words, and denotative and connotative rules. There is nothing that comes close to the importance of human interaction and communication in humans. That is why it is important to see the similarities between Speech Therapy and Communication Studies and why speech therapy holds a very special place in my heart.
