ADHD Speech Therapy Advice

[YorkshirePhoenix]

Hello, has anyone here been able to locate professional resources for better managing verbal communication challenges…like an adhd speech therapist. Some tools that have helped me this past year after my diagnosis is counseling, general professional coaching, adhd podcasts, low doses of medication, healthy living, SLEEP!

Not being able to collect basic thoughts and verbalize them concisely is still a mystery for me though. Losing power and confidence in my voice when the wind blows is super frustrating at work. It’s like copying something into Microsoft Word and the format is off…sometimes a lot, sometimes just like a font difference that is functional but obvious.

[STEM_Dad]

Sometimes I have to write out what I want to say later, because I can't find the words in the moment. It's like knowing what to say, but not finding the words to say it.

I've gotten a little better with just ADHD treatment, but when I went through an ADHD coaching program with other people, this seemed to be a common experience. (So was the opposite experience, of blurting things out without really thinking how the words would sound. Often, what was said was not what was meant.)

Taking time to clarify your thoughts in writing can help.

From my professional experience, I've found that I'm better able to talk and respond on a topic if I understand it well. If I know something well enough to teach it to someone in a simple way, then I know it well enough and can speak about it comfortably enough to carry on a back-and-forth conversation about it, without getting tongue-tied (or at least, not as much).

>> I didn't figure this out for myself. I learned it from an Einstein quote: "If you can't explain it simply, then you don't understand it well enough."

(Alternatively: "If you can't explain it to a six year old, then you don't understand it yourself." ...or various other renditions.)

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My experience is with not being able to find the right words at the time that I'm speaking with someone else.

I've also had difficulty speaking in groups or in front of a group, which I attribute to social anxiety (undiagnosed, but I know my experience).

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If your difficulty is with the speaking itself, then I apologize for being way off base.

[Gettingittogether]

Speech therapists are aware of ADHD and people struggling to gather their thoughts. Such therapy is often recommended for young people with ADHD.

I say start there. My sense is that speech therapists work with a range of conditions and disorders, including people with brain injuries and speech anxiety.. So I would expect you wouldn't have to look too hard to find someone who can work with you. My sense is that speech therapists have a big toolkit that applies to a lot of different situations. They aren't just about pronouncing and enunciating. They are also about thinking, practicing, relaxing, and so on.

[STEM_Dad in reply to Gettingittogether]

Thank you. I realize that I was only thinking of the part of speech therapy my grandson has had, for difficulty with pronunciation. I forgot that there is much more to speech therapy.

I've found that my own difficulty with words was helped when I started on ADHD medication. I believe it was working memory issues, because as my working memory was improved, so was my ability to find my words when speaking.

But, I know other people experience different issues with speech than I have.

[Gettingittogether in reply to STEM_Dad]

A buddy and colleague of mine also has ADHD. He was noticing after he went on medication how much more articulate he was compared to how he was before medication. It was noticeable and a source of humor on his part. You're right: working memory is such a huge deal--it's involved with everything and especially with speech when we're having to remember what the other person just said to us and remember the overall conversation to that point and call up what we're thinking now ... and figure out the right words we want to say based on all these things.

Wow, I'm exhausted just thinking of this.

[F_RN_Dx_at_39]

At work, and occasionally during a heated discussion with a partner... where I'm being told I ____ wrong, my brain sometimes acts like the blue screen of death.

Blue Screen of Death