Baby Step

A baby step forward.

I’ve been blogs and chat chains by people with voice problems. It’s been both highly interesting and educational.

One author’s story really engaged me. She had a sudden and unexpected anaphylactic response to something and had an emergency intubation. Ever since, she has had no voice. She now signs. Her story put my problem in perspective; I can still communicate.

I’ve read so much and so much jargon I get dizzy and trying to think of how to share it, but speech therapists seem to separate their clients into those with speech disorders and those with communication disorders. I believe I fall into the latter category.  

It seems very clear to me that I do not have a speech problem. I can easily communicate. I can use my “normal voice” that varies between being a horrible disaster and a voice that works well enough — at least for short times. Or I can use my accent voice or my robot voice. But because I have to make a serious adaptation to talk, a speech therapist would consider me as having a communication disorder. 

A stutter is a communications disorder and like a stutterer, I can sing, and read aloud better than when I speak extemporaneously. It is a minor thing to most people, but for me it’s a baby step towards a diagnosis and appropriate corrective therapy.