Hope has a new speech teacher and I'm feeling a little stale today so could someone suggest areas to work on with her?
I have an old letter to her last speech teacher (last summer), but some of the items no longer apply as much.
I guess I just need some ideas....
I think her biggest need is being able to distinguish when people don't want to talk on a topic of her choosing anymore, but there may be other areas that just haven't occurred to me yet.
She also needs help with body language.
Would talking about something that she don't find interesting be talking at all?
Just thinking.
What really helped me was that my speech teacher taught me some basic body language - both to recognise it in other people and how to use basic body language myself.
It is pretty slow progress, but she never gave up on me and we got there in the end. I only know the basics, but it is enough to tell when someone is angry, bored, unhappy or happy.
We also worked a lot on how different emphasis in the same sentence can change the meaning.
this is a bad example but is all I can think of right now:
Did you have to do that? Did you have to do x activity as opposed to someone else. For example, did a manager have to clean the toilets or something. Which you wouldn't really expect a manager to do.
Did you have to do that? - Did you have to do x as opposed to y? Did you have to call someone a bad name when you could have just walked off (for example)
Did you have to do that? - was it really necessary for you to do that? Couldn't you have restrained yourself?
Well, you get the idea. It took me ages to learn this, but once I did it was a great help. (Although I don't always get it right, but it is an improvement on not understanding at all!)
What really helped me was that my speech teacher taught me some basic body language - both to recognise it in other people and how to use basic body language myself.
It is pretty slow progress, but she never gave up on me and we got there in the end. I only know the basics, but it is enough to tell when someone is angry, bored, unhappy or happy.
We also worked a lot on how different emphasis in the same sentence can change the meaning.
this is a bad example but is all I can think of right now:
Did you have to do that? Did you have to do x activity as opposed to someone else. For example, did a manager have to clean the toilets or something. Which you wouldn't really expect a manager to do.
Did you have to do that? - Did you have to do x as opposed to y? Did you have to call someone a bad name when you could have just walked off (for example)
Did you have to do that? - was it really necessary for you to do that? Couldn't you have restrained yourself?
Well, you get the idea. It took me ages to learn this, but once I did it was a great help. (Although I don't always get it right, but it is an improvement on not understanding at all!)
I remember reading something similar recently on AFF- maybe your post.
Great ideas, aliengirl! I will incorporate them. She will have this teacher for 35 minutes each Tues./Thurs. all school year so she will have the time to pursue this.
These sure beat the "coping mechanism" that I grew up learning, "nobody wants to hear this, do NOT start talking about this..." Completely internally thought up, but still, not a good way to get self-confidence.
These sure beat the "coping mechanism" that I grew up learning, "nobody wants to hear this, do NOT start talking about this..." Completely internally thought up, but still, not a good way to get self-confidence.
I know what you mean - I got a lot of that from my Mother. "No-one is interested in what you have to say. You're no good. Remember that everyone is better than you." etc. etc. Needless to say my Mother doesn't really 'do' equality.
I moved out to live with my Dad when I was 17 (incredibly difficult, but for the best at the time) and started seeing a speech teacher at around age 18 - so I came to it a bit late!
Ellen - I think it is great that you are getting this help for your daughter. Good luck 
The only way I could tell is if I might have been talking about something other people didn't want to hear is if they gave me "funny" looks. Then I thought they were probably quite rude but decided to keep my thoughts to myself and not talk very much at all.
What really helped me was that my speech teacher taught me some basic body language - both to recognise it in other people and how to use basic body language myself.
It is pretty slow progress, but she never gave up on me and we got there in the end. I only know the basics, but it is enough to tell when someone is angry, bored, unhappy or happy.
We also worked a lot on how different emphasis in the same sentence can change the meaning.
this is a bad example but is all I can think of right now:
Did you have to do that? Did you have to do x activity as opposed to someone else. For example, did a manager have to clean the toilets or something. Which you wouldn't really expect a manager to do.
Did you have to do that? - Did you have to do x as opposed to y? Did you have to call someone a bad name when you could have just walked off (for example)
Did you have to do that? - was it really necessary for you to do that? Couldn't you have restrained yourself?
Well, you get the idea. It took me ages to learn this, but once I did it was a great help. (Although I don't always get it right, but it is an improvement on not understanding at all!)
With me, even though I currently understand the theory of the different meanings (I can differentiate between them when written or spoken), when I end up talking, if I haven't got to plan out my inflections and stresses, then I often speak with stresses on odd syllables in a word or sentence. I wonder if anybody knows a good strategy for regulating this?