Affiliate Highlight: Speech Spark Services

We’re continuing with our affiliate highlight series, this time turning our eye to Speech Spark Services in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

What Makes Speech Spark Services Unique?

My practice is built on two valuable lessons I learned through experience, and that my clients still continually reinforce for me. First, a client is more than their diagnosis. The medical history and diagnosis are important; they tell me what I’m assessing and guides treatment techniques, but they are just one piece of the puzzle. What is more important for their treatment is who they are as a person. Their interests, their priorities, their goals. I specialize in communication recovery – so I’m helping clients return to skills they had once, but for various reasons, have lost. I love how working with me helps them rediscover and return to themselves. And to help them do that, I need to listen, pay attention, and really be attuned to who they are beyond their medical history and conditions.

Secondly, communication partners and therapists need to talk less. Clients need thinking and processing time as well as shorter sentences to both understand and to come up with their words. They often need me to talk less, so they can understand and talk more.

Great Success Stories

This is my favorite story, not because of leaps and bounds, but because rapport, patience, and excellent therapy made a huge difference in quality of life for the client. Client B was not initially keen on my suggestion to keep a pocket planner on hand so he could use strategies, but I didn’t need to argue with him that my strategies would work. Over time, he could see for himself that our therapy was making a huge difference to his life, and the strategies and techniques I taught him worked.

Slowly but surely, he became more open to and accepting of my suggestions. Now when he “doesn’t catch” a word, he’ll use his strategies. And when we set up our next appointment, he will grab his overstuffed pocket planner (that he denied needing for the first 6+ months of working together) to write it down. Every time I see that pocket planner, my heart does a quiet, joyful dance. He has grown more independent and confident in his life because of our work together. So much so that he will even advocate for himself when conversing with someone, telling them he had a stroke and has aphasia so they need to slow down. That person will often be surprised and say they never would have guessed he’d had a stroke.

They Love What They Do

I love the problem-solving involved in my work. There is no “cookbook” for therapy because each client is unique and requires their own approach. So much of my therapy involves breaking down the tasks and figuring out what techniques and tricks will work for the individual person. The best thing about being a small private practice is that I can make the time to focus on quality individualized treatments for my clients.

Services and Support Groups

I offer 1:1 in-home speech therapy treatments in the greater Green Bay area, including De Pere, Howard, and north Appleton area. All therapy programs are individualized to the client, include a home program, and I can also offer intensive speech therapy options for those who want more frequent sessions to accelerate their recovery. For caregivers, I provide individualized help, based on what they need, including training and communication strategies as part of their loved one’s therapy.

More Information

I’m a certified speech-language pathologist with almost 15 years of experience focused on adult speech therapy. Specializing in stroke recovery, I use research-based therapeutic techniques that focus on the client’s strengths to help accelerate progress. My sessions focus on working through plateaus, around roadblocks, and implementing strategies where needed to ensure the highest quality of life possible.

Do you live in the Green Bay, Wisconsin area? Contact the Speech Spark Services for speech services and support groups.

We’re spending 2018 highlighting our affiliates in order to make it easier for caregivers to find services for their loved ones. Are you an affiliate of the NAA and would like to be highlighted in a future installment? Please fill out the form and we’ll contact you.