Speech Pathologists As Part Of Your Multidisciplinary Team
Working as a team, with you and all your team members, is essential. Speech pathologists are experts in communication, language, voice and swallowing. It Is Important to consider whether they could be supporting you to achieve your goals.
There may be one main goal that you are working on with your other team members. A Speech pathologist can assist with considering different areas that may be impacting this main goal.
Liz is a 35-year-old woman with Down’s Syndrome. Her main goal is to be able to travel to the shops on the bus and do her weekly grocery shop.
One of the barriers to Liz achieving her goal is that she lacks confidence with communicating with strangers as her speech isn’t always clear and she worries people won’t understand her.
The areas below are where a Speech pathologist could help Liz:
- identify if the difficulty with communication is due to a difficulty with voice volume, speech sounds in words or remembering different words and questions that she wants to say.
- work with Liz to strengthen her current skills and use strategies such as understanding common questions and responses that she will come across during the bus trip and grocery shopping
- Accompany Liz on an outing after practice and develop a repertoire of common questions/responses
- Work with Liz’s Occupational Therapist. Provide them with the skills that Liz is developing and how they can support her communication skills.
After working with a Speech pathologist, she now is able to use voice projection techniques so that the bus driver can hear her requests of where she Is going. Liz is able to visit the deli counter and request the sausages from the attendant, as her understanding of questions and her expected response was worked on during sessions with the Speech pathologist.
The speech pathologist worked closely with Liz and her Occupational Therapist to ensure that the support team were all working towards Liz’s main goal. Liz’s speech pathologist was able to encourage her communication skills and build her confidence so that she Is now on her way to achieving her goals.
If you are already receiving support from one of the National 360 professionals, ask the question of your team ‘Could a Speech pathologist help me reach my goals?’.
There are a variety of funding options available at National 360 depending on a person’s individual circumstances. The easiest way to explore your options, and assess your eligibility is to discuss your circumstances with our customer service team.
You can find out more about our speech pathology services by contacting us on 1300 340 440.
Or if you are ready to make a referral click here.
