How Speech Therapy Can Help Your Career

Written by: Nimra Khan / Professional Communication / June 12, 2023 / 8 minutes read

At WellSaid, we converse with many clients who are seeking communication improvements for a variety of professional communication concerns. A comment I’ve often heard is that clients did not expect to be able to target these concerns in a speech therapy appointment as it does not appear to be traditionally thought of as something a speech-language pathologist (SLP) can work on. However, SLPs can be some of the best individuals to target these areas as we are so focused on communication in a holistic sense, with training on the physiology of the subsystems of speech, as well as how to make the best use of those systems to your advantage. 

All that being said, there can be many ways in which speech therapy can help your career as an adult. Let’s discuss a few of them here. 

Self-development for the workplace

This is a larger long-term benefit of speech therapy as an adult. Many clients want to improve their ability to present ideas, negotiate with others, and complete presentations in order to improve their performance at work. Here are a few areas that can be targeted: 

Presentations

Speaking in front of a group of people, whether in-person or online, requires a change in pace and overall tone of voice. This can be especially different based on your audience. In my experience, however, a presentation in front of a board, town hall, bank co-workers, or PhD defense, all require the same base skills that you can then tweak to your advantage. 

In speech therapy appointments, this involves discussion and practice of better articulation, breath support, and pacing. As well, we can discuss how to structure PowerPoints to be engaging, or how to use your body language to display confidence. All of these skills can allow your presentations to be more confident, further helping your career. 

Negotiation and difficult conversations 

There can be many conversations at the workplace that require being assertive, standing up for your rights, or negotiating for pay. All of these areas, when done well, can help you to progress in your career. In a speech therapy appointment, we work on how to speak directly but clearly by using I statements, and have a confident voice by using more downward intonation. By practicing difficult scenarios, we build confidence within the appointment so that if/when the situation arises, you can have practice with the ability to get feedback and think on the spot more quickly. Read more about communication and authority. 

Networking and making conversation 

Aside from difficult conversations, many connections for career advancement can be made through light-hearted conversations made during the work day. By practicing and discussing the benefits and use of small talk, the ‘elevator pitch’, and how to approach different people at the office, you can make these attempts more successfully. I have many clients who also present from different cultures and backgrounds, so it can be beneficial to more explicitly discuss and understand the work culture, along with your own strengths and areas to add on. 

I have often used the personal examples that clients present to me, of an upcoming work social event or someone they plan to approach at lunch time, and this provides a great opportunity to practice these in the situations that come up most often. 

Areas of need in conversational skills can also include:

1. Asking Questions

2. Starting a conversation

3. Asking for a favor

4. Giving a compliment

5. Accepting a compliment

6. Accepting criticism

7. Giving criticism

8. Apologizing

9. Giving instruction 

10. Expressing your feelings

11. Handling anger

12. Stating what you want 

13. Stating an unpopular opinion

14. Saying no

15. Active listening 

Interviews 

This area is, of course, vital to helping start on a career path or switch to something new. Interviews are helpful to practice, because there is an expected structure and you can prepare many answers beforehand to have examples ready to go in the moment. In an appointment, we work through a STAR Framework for answering situational questions, and practice effective answers for various common situational and behavioural questions. These can also be tailored to your work field – for example, in the past I have used a job posting on LinkedIn for the type of job a client is searching for, and we use that to design and answer questions. In this way, therapy is always tailored with taking the foundational concepts and applying it to the situations that you will most likely face. 

Speech Language Pathologists can be some of the best individuals to target areas of professional communication concerns as we are so focused on communication in a holistic sense, with training on the physiology of the subsystems of speech.

Lisp reduction as an adult

Although many people will work with an SLP at a young age to reduce or eliminate a lisp, I’ve worked with many adults who have reached a point that their unresolved lisp is affecting their confidence in the workplace. It’s normal to wonder if it will ever change. The answer to this is that, yes, it can still be reduced as an adult. 

Applying to your career, reducing the effect of a lisp can help you to appear more confident in your speech, to articulate more clearly in presentations and interviews, and overall to raise your own confidence in speaking. If your lisp makes you so self-conscious that you shy away from larger opportunities because of it, then it’s definitely time to speak to an SLP and discuss the treatment plan that might work best. 

Vocal hygiene

For individuals who have to speak a lot for their work, there can be difficulties with voice that arise due to misuse, overuse, psychological effects, illness, and more. These difficulties have a great social impact, as it can be harder to speak for longer periods, to raise your volume, and overall can reduce your confidence. 

By bringing these concerns to a speech therapy appointment, you can work together with the SLP to learn ways to build changes into your eating/drinking habits that can support your voice recovery. As well, you can practice warm-ups/voice exercises and learn ways to conserve your voice as you speak to make the impact less evident on your work events.

I have personally seen how managing and improving voice health gives professionals the confidence to speak up in situations when they might not have, and to continue to excel in their work roles. Read more about the voice disorders in professional users.

Accent

Although having a difference in accent is not a main reason to change it, if a client comes to me with a goal to modify their accent, and make more use of the speech sounds and prosody found in Canadian English, then that is definitely a goal we can target. I’ve seen how this does not eliminate a different accent, but allows the user to feel more confident in clarifying when someone has misunderstood what they have said, and to feel they can move up in a corporate environment with more ease. Accent modification can be a longer process, as it requires focus as you speak and many, many repetitions of specific sounds to build into your repertoire. However, with enough practice, I’ve seen improved clarity for clients. Read more about the effects of bilingualism on communication.

Fluency

Many individuals who stutter can find it difficult to speak in fast-pace and high-pressure work situations. By attending speech therapy, you can work together with the SLP to improve the internal setbacks (i.e. low confidence, nervousness and more), as well as the overt or physical features of your stutter that you can have more control of. This does not focus on elimination as that is unlikely for most adult stutterers, however it does focus on empowering you to stutter with more ease and to not let this redact from your message or reduce your opportunities. By improving use of strategies for fluency, you can be more confident in your approach to presentations and social communication. 

This is not an exhaustive list, but provides a broad overview of the many ways in which speech therapy can help support your career. There may be some areas you had not considered yourself before, but can be good to delve into further. For instance, other areas can also include leadership skills, non-verbal cues, and active listening. If you are interested in exploring communication skills at your own pace, it would be worthwhile to try our online Communication Wellness Masterclass. 

To speak with one of the speech-language pathologists at Well Said: Toronto Speech Therapy, schedule an initial consultation by clicking the link below or calling (647) 795-5277.