What are the goals of speech therapy?

What are the goals of speech therapy?

Adult speech therapy also begins with an assessment to determine your needs and the best course of treatment. Speech therapy exercises for adults can help you with speech, language, and cognitive-communication.

Exercises may involve:

  • 1. problem solving, memory, organization, and other activities geared at improving cognitive-communication
  • 2. conversational tactics to improve social communication
  • 3. breathing exercises for resonance
  • ercises to strengthen oral muscles

Accuracy Level

We use an accuracy level of 80% for most goals. Below 65% accuracy borders on “chance” levels for some goals. While above 95% gets into “mastery” territory, which often isn’t the goal of speech therapy.
Cues
For Severe Impairments, we use “frequent, maximal cues.”
For Moderate Impairments, we use “intermittent, moderate cues.”
For Mild Impairment, we use “occasional, minimal cues.”

1. Dysphagia:

  • Different liquid texture: thin, thick nectar, dense like honey
  • A variety of food textures: simple, mechanically soft, mechanical dysphagia, puree
  • Different presentations: cup, straw, spoon, teaspoon, successive sips, single sips
  • Vary the amount: by the ounce, by meal, or by meal (e.g., "small side salad" or "twin")
  • Various muscle groups: labial, lingual, buccal, oral, oropharyngeal, pharyngeal, pharyngoesophageal, esophageal.

Example- Goals can include swallowing safety, timeliness, and appropriateness.

2. Aphasia:

  • Change language comprehension or expression
  • Various forms of representation: hearing, writing, gestures
  • Change response modality: spoken, written, gesture
  • Change answer length: words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, conversations, pages
  • Change response time, usually in seconds

Example- The patient will write sentences in response to verbal prompts with 80% accuracy given minimal written cues.

Hearing Test Results

3. Motor speech:

  • Change the answer length: single phonemes, syllables, words, syllables, phrases, sentences, simple conversations, complex conversations, monologues
  • Change response time, usually in seconds
  • Change the position of phonemes and words: beginning, middle, end
  • Various forms of presentation: oral or written

Example- The patient will produce initial /h/ syllables with 70% accuracy at maximum articulation position and maximum visual cues to improve verbal communication skills.

4.Cognition:

  • Change complexity: simple, moderate, complex
  • Change response time, usually in seconds

Example- The patient will recall and complete steps to listen to a voice message at 80% accuracy given minimal visual cues.

5. Visual neglect

Example- Patients read page-level information from novels with 100% accuracy and sometimes have minimal verbal cues to use finger-sensing techniques to scroll to the far left of the page.

Conclusion: With these goals, you can see improvement in treatment. Search for a speech therapy clinic and start your speech therapy as early as possible to increase your speech quality, search for a speech therapy clinic in Noida.

+91 858-692-9155