Sharing my speech therapy secrets! Home therapy tips, lessons, and exercises for individuals with neurologic injuries and their caregivers. I'm Kasondra, a speech therapist in California working with clients who have aphasia, dysarthria, dysphagia, voice and cognitive difficulties from acquired neurologic conditions.
I a retired Home Health Aide ( CERTIFIED) I took care of people with strokes, head injury, dementia and Parkinson's. I did these exercises with my patients I did a lot of encouragement. I very hurt because my son is autistic and never got any exercise for my son and asked told them I was a AIDE, one on one is the best to help people. Thank you for your support.
Hi Shaun, I’m so glad to hear you were able to do these exercises with the people you were helping. These are excellent resources for caregivers helping those with neurological disease in their daily routine. I hope you find the support you need for your son and are able to work with a speech therapist to address his individual communication needs. Keep advocating! 🙌
@@SpeechSecrets Thank you for your support. I open up my patients care book and with your videos it's helping me out I'm doing a lot of visual with him and I have SPL Ittleman book. So once again thanks, I always say you guys are the brick and we are the glue. 😊💕
So happy I found you! I am dealing with minor speech impairment following multiple TIA's I have gone through tongue therapy in the past, following a reaction to silver filling exposure during a dental procedure. (As i looked back on this experience, I wondered if I had a minor stroke) Tongue therapy was extensive, and very helpful. I am looking forward to exploring all of your content! Thank you so much!
Hi Joyce! Thanks for sharing about your journey. I've never thought about reactions to mercury exposure as an etiology for oral motor difficulties. Please let me know what you think of the videos and the information provided. Feel free to leave suggestions for future! Blessings
These exercises are for individuals who have lingual weakness, decreased range of motion or coordination difficulties. Individuals who stutter and have the deficits mentioned above may benefit. But if stuttering is the only difficulty, I am not aware of any research that would support these types of exercises.
Frequency recommendation for these exercises are aligned with principles of exercise physiology and principles of neuroplasticity. 3-5 times weekly is a common frequency recommendation.
🙌 Glad you are looking for resources. Here is another great RU-vid channel by an occupational therapist: youtube.com/@poststrokeorg?si=JnR3wRjXbX0XyxEt
So I grew up with Indian parents and embarassingly, not many friends. Because I didn't have a chance to develop my speech as I grew up, my voice just sounds bad and inconsistent, I have a stutter (but not bad enough to go to a doctor), and I sound VERY SLIGHTLY Indian-American. My question is, how do I get a better voice? Any vocal exercises? And as for my slight Indian accent, any ideas as to what could be causing it, like tongue placement or something? And should I try to get a speech therapist? I've tried to have speech practice sessions where I read walls of Wikipedia to myself, but paradoxically, it makes my stutter worse, and doesn't actually improve my pronounciation. I've also tried listening to myself speaking into a microphone to find out what's wrong with my accent, and I did improve it a bit, but I still can't describe it other than just sounding slightly indian. For reference, here is what I want my voice to sound like: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mfyacc6iWTE.html Any advice?
Thanks for making this and other videos with swallowing exercises. I had thyroid cancer that had spread to lymph nodes in my neck and 2 of my parathyroid glands. I had a total thyroidectomy and left neck dissection 3 years ago. After my surgery, I started getting choked while eating or drinking. The choking doesn't happen every time I eat or drink; it happens randomly, so there's no way to really be evaluated. I will practice these exercises and others from your videos so hopefully I won't get choked as often. Thanks again!
There are some letters that I find difficult to pronounce. I thought they were stuttering, but I noticed that my tongue trembles when I try to pronounce some of the words of these letters. Will these exercises solve the problem?
Hi Rose Rose! Thanks for asking. I cannot speak to what will help your individual speech difficulties, but I’d encourage you to check out my various educational speech videos and see if you find any strategies helpful. I have a speak clearly video and also I'm working on a sound series with specific English consonants. This tongue exercise video is designed for individuals with decreased tongue strength and decreased range of motion.
hi mam once again me🤚🏻 In the past, when I continued to talk or read a long article, excessive drooling would disturb me. With this practice even excessive salivation can come under control and one can speak well. Many thanks again❤
Hi Anbu, Generally oral motor exercises cause a temporary increase in saliva as they can stimulate the salivary glands. However, for someone with oral motor weakness or decreased sensation, exercises may help them have better muscle strength/control for management of the saliva that is produced.
generally doing oral motor exercises will stimulate the salivary glands. Kind of like when one eats, the salivary glands are stimulated to increase saliva temporarily. I am not aware of research regarding long term changes to salivary glands from oral motor exercises but feel free to let me know if you find any!
Kosandra, thank you for making these videos with step by step, follow-along, and timers for dysphagia. I am working with my wonderful speech therapist and using your videos to help me with her suggested exercises. Appreciate your work and the videos make this daily routine, easier to manage.👍
Allen! Thank you so much for taking the time to give me this feedback. I am glad you have a great speech therapist you are working with and that these videos complement your home exercise program. Comments like yours keep me motivated! Feel free to make requests for any certain topics or video types that would be helpful! Wishing you much success as you continue your rehabilitation.
These are fantastic! I avoided the sh*t, messed up the fast fellows, so was very scared about plucking figs but amazingly I got through! Not quite as fast as you. I guess that means come back for more! haha PS how many tries did you need to record this?
Hahaha! Thanks for the play-by-play 😅 The smart fellows I've been doing since I was a kid so that one is no problem. But I did have to take two takes with fig plucking and go a little slower slitting sheets! Not to mention the rehearsal practice I did in the car while driving. Glad you liked them and that they gave you a laugh.
Thank you for making this video. Diagnosed with Dysphagia and working with Speech Therapist, who prescribed these 3 along with pitch glides and lips exercises "oooo" - "eeee". This video is helping me get started. 🙂
Hi Justin, thanks for the idea! I will add it to my list. I'm working on a series of the late developing English consonants (th, sh, ch, r, l etc) and a vocal function exercise video right now, but can consider doing f after. In the meantime, this video is geared towards children, but hopefully it helps for the time being! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0VFJLEymCC8.html
why does my lips feels dry doing these exercises? thank you....... i just found you today and did this exercised with you now..... this is my 3rd video.
Hey Linda! Thanks for watching and for commenting. Folks feel dry mouth when the salivary glands do not produce enough saliva and this can be for a variety of reasons, as simple as dehydration.
This is the greatest! It's my friend Donna Stevens’ song. She will love hearing this :-) ru-vid.com/group/PLXagdMdrrJyzvznhk41Y9OGLhYOwmNlqi&si=XRN8sEabhUslQFmb
As a layperson/stroke survivor, I can testify to the value of completing exercise #4. There's a temptation to skip it because it's not follow-along, or one doesn't have a special passage to read, or think 'I will do it later'. My SLP had me read my novel aloud, practicing these strategies for 10 to 15 minutes, 2 to 3 times a day. It was surprisingly difficult at first (I guess we don't often read aloud continuously as adults!), but after 2 weeks my speech has improved dramatically. And I am still practicing using these tips. I am so grateful to Kasondra for recording these videos. They reinforce, explain, and allow me to leverage my sessions with my SLP.
David, thanks for this thoughtful message and for sharing your experience with me and the other viewers. I'm so glad to hear that your speech is seeing improvement with all the work you are putting in. Also glad to hear that you're finding these videos as a helpful resource in addition to your speech therapy. Feel free to suggest video topics!
Thanks! I had found the Oral Motor Exercises but not the others. The phoneme one also seems really useful to me. I hadn't figured out how to resequence them - so thanks for that tip!
Glad that tip was helpful! SmallTalk has a few others besides those that I mentioned when you search in the App Store as well. Thanks for taking the time to comment!
That is really helpful. I find when I do the tongue narrowing in the third exercise that my tongue is curled upwards in a U shape, whereas yours appears flatter and triangular. Do I just need more practice with a mirror?
I cannot comment on your experience specifically. However, it took me some practice with a mirror to be able to achieve the fat/narrow tongue exercise consistently. Sticking one’s tongue out slightly may also help achieve the narrow position.
Thanks for another great video. The “sssss” sound is particularly difficult for me, as air escapes from my nose due to velopharyngeal dysfunction. Ironically, I can make this sound perfectly when I have a stuffy nose. Ha!
