Speech Language Pathology

Biography

Biography: Sandra M Grether

Abstract

Communication is more than just being able to verbally pronounce words and sentences. We communicate to participate in a conversation, asking and answering questions and commenting. We also communicate to regulate the behavior of others and to interact socially. But to achieve these purposes effectively we need to be competent across multiple areas. Linguistically, we need to know what words to say and how to organize them into grammatically correct sentences so our communication partners understand us and perceive us as a competent communicator. Socially, we need to know when it is our turn to speak and how to introduce a topic, maintain it and redirect it if we want to talk about something else. We need to be able to share our stories and know how to effectively end a conversation. Strategically, we need to know when someone does not understand us and we may need to clarify or add more information. We need to be effective, multi-modal communicators across our day and use speech and gestures, as well as our phone and written technology to communicate our messages. Our lives are adversely affected when we cannot do these things competently. To maintain, regain and/or achieve a better quality of life, we need to determine what is preventing us from being an effective communicator and what we can do to make things better.