How I Found My Voice (Therapy)

Are you a speech/language pathologist who is afraid of voice therapy? I was. To be honest, I still am a little bit. A perspective voice evaluation gives me flashbacks of voice class at Pitt, circa 1985 (yes, I am that old and still a practicing clinician.) Visions of the Cathedral of Learning conference room on that Comm Dis floor, come flooding back. Voice was definitely not my strongest suit in grad school.

I went to school during a time when we had to have so many hours in each of the disability areas: articulation, language, voice, and fluency. We all scrambled to get voice hours. I got some of mine by accompanying one of the clinical supervisors to her class at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. It was a class called, "Homiletics II." Basically it was vocal hygiene and some preventative stuff for ministers to be getting ready to rock their sermons.

I've always been interested in learning new things. I am a self-proclaimed speech geek and am always trying to make my therapy better. But somehow, voice was always just a little out of reach.

Fast forward to 2019. when I was working a part-time job at a private practice. I came upon a client with paralyzed vocal cords, totally not in my comfort zone. What was I to do but study up, research, ask some of my medical colleagues? And now, history in the making. I found out that I really enjoyed this client and that I actually was good at voice therapy. See, you absolutely can teach an old dog new tricks!

So there is the beginning of my journey into voice therapy. I'm still finding my way, and I invite you to find it along with me!