Speech Therapy

The speech therapy team at Benefis offers assistance to hospitalized patients as well as to outpatients and those recuperating in our inpatient rehabilitation center.

Help for All Ages

Our speech therapists – sometimes called speech-language pathologists – are highly qualified professionals who assist people of all ages. Bringing both skill and compassion to their work, they can help you deal with a variety of problems.

Sometimes these problems – like cerebral palsy, for example – develop before birth or soon after. Other times, they occur as a result of health issues such as stroke, traumatic brain injury, oral cancer, or dementia.

Whether a person has trouble speaking, understanding language, or organizing their thoughts for communication, speech therapy may help and improve quality of life.

How Speech Therapy Makes a Difference

A speech therapist may help people:

• Understand how to make sounds correctly and refine the quality of their voice.
• Improve speech fluency to reduce stuttering.
• Build and strengthen communication skills and “stimulate” language development.
• Learn to use augmentative and alternative communication devices, which help people convey thoughts, needs, and wants without oral speech.
• Strengthen muscles needed for eating and swallowing.
• Compensate for hearing loss or deafness.
• Develop better memory and attention, which may help with language impairment.
• Cope with communication disorders in family members.

SPEAK OUT!®

Benefis offers a two-part speech therapy program to help individuals with Parkinson’s regain and maintain effective communication: SPEAK OUT!® followed by The LOUD Crowd®.

SPEAK OUT!® places emphasis on speaking with intent and converting speech from an automatic function to an intentional act. Together, patients and their speech-language pathologist work through a series of speech, voice, and cognitive exercises outlined in a SPEAK OUT!® Workbook.

Upon completion of SPEAK OUT!®, patients transition to The LOUD Crowd®. This maintenance program consists of weekly group sessions led by a speech-language pathologist. The SPEAK OUT!® exercises are performed, and group members provide support, encouragement, and accountability to one another.

Participation in The LOUD Crowd®, along with daily home practice and six-month re-evaluations, has been shown to help patients maintain their communication skills throughout the progression of Parkinson’s.