Speech problems

[Matt2584]

Speech problems are common with BI. Not many people I know with BI have them though, lucky gits, but for me my central nervous system was damaged giving me weak muscles, especially noticable in the face and it is difficult for me to clearly pronounce words containing Bs, Ps and Ms. I think I have mentioned that part before but Hey, I have a BI :). At my local Headway we usually have a quiz. I am sometimes the master of these quizzes, not that I am a boffin cos I clearly am not but because I might be the quizmaster sometimes. I have read out questions before and one person in the group really can be quite rude at times. Because of his BI he probably does not realise this. I might say the word 'basketball' and he might think I said 'Vasketvall' which is completely ridiculous cos as far as I know, vasketvalls do not exist. I might tell him next time, I clearly said 'basketball'. What the hell is a 'Vasketvall'? He would most probably say "I don't know, you said it" but I can then say "Why would I say a non existant word?".

[Matt2584]

TAGGED STORY TIME!

BASKETBALL, NERVOUS_SYSTEM, CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM, NERVOUS, MS, SPEECH PROBLEMS

"One day! I was playing BASKETBALL and afterwards decided to up to my room and do some online chatting.

There was a guy in one of the chat rooms and his screen name was called NERVOUS_SYSTEM which I thought was a very strange screen name.

Anyhow, it reminded me of my very own CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM which was damaged during an operation.

After that operation I found myself to be quite NERVOUS around people, especially people who had MS and those with SPEECH PROBLEMS.

I was extra nervous around people who had a combination of both. The end."

[headchild]

For several years my daughter completely lost her speech due to her brain tumour. I went to Makaton workshops with her and she was also given a 'lightwriter' machine which spoke for her. Gradually the swelling on her brain went down and her speech began to return, problem was it left her with speech which very few could understand and even I struggled at times.

I requested a visit to speech therapy to see if we could build on the speech she had.

This worked very well and with the exercises suggestions by the S/T eventually her speech improved, in fact these days apart from when she is tired and slurs her words no one has any difficulty in understanding what she is saying.

[Matt2584 in reply to headchild]

Hi Headchild.

I'm glad to hear that your daughters speech has improved especially after losing her speech completely! That is quite an achievement. When I first came out of hospital, I and my family had no real support or low support. We would have to literally seek help for ourselves. I have not heard of these Makaton workshops or light writer machines, what are these? I did have speech therapy once I left hospital, I don't know if the hospital directed us for me to have speech therapy or if my parents made that decision. I was only 12 back then so I lot of things went over my head and I just know what I have been through. It wasn't until 2008 when I found out that I qualified for a disabled bus pass! They don't make it easy for disabled people do they?

[headchild in reply to Matt2584]

Makaton is a simple sign language, many people with learning difficulties use it as it's much easier than the British sign language. A lightwriter is a machine like a type writer but it's smaller and sits on the knee, can easily be carried about. You type in what you want to say and the machine speaks it for you.

Daughters had a 'favourites' button where she could store her much used sentences ( for example 'bye' hello' how are you etc.

I was messing about with it one day and went went into the 'favourites' there were some phrases/ words in there which were not lady like lol.

Life can be very difficult for the disabled and it's all about doing lots of ground work to get information. Pleased you finally found out about your bus pass entitlement though.

[Matt2584 in reply to headchild]

Thanks :).

I might have to look up Makaton and lighteriters, they sound interesting.

[Hidden]

I am lucky that my speech isn't affected - apart from word finding problems, getting good at charades now

But even this has improved except when I am tired.

[Matt2584 in reply to Hidden]

Well, in charades, you're not supposed to talk anyway haha. Glad your getting better at it anyway :).

[gr33nmind]

Yes .. I also have a lot of problems speaking. My dysarthria is partially muscular, but I also think it's related to my cognition, a bit. I usually speak words to fast, trying to beat my memory, from losing my current train of thought. I also seem to have trouble, clearly writing anything, like notes to friends. I am still able to draw, so the speech & writing issue, must be a cognitive in nature, and not completely physical. I took communications in college, and love to speak & write, so I find the problem almost unbearable. The truly bizarre thing that I find about this communication problem, is that if I take my time, typing on the computer keyboard, it all seems to be written fairly clearly. It might take awhile to peek out what I want to say, but that form of communication, isn't hurt that much. Our brains are weird things