Whether it be talking with co-workers around the water cooler, saying “I love you” to your spouse, sharing a joke with your neighbor, texting your brother, or sending an email to your boss, people love to communicate; it’s what we do. Communication, in all its forms, is what creates and maintains the bonds and relationships in our lives, and the ability to communicate is what defines us as being human.
Communication can be divided into three main categories: comprehension, expression, and production. Comprehension or receptive language is the ability to receive a message from someone and understand the meaning of that message, whether it be spoken, written, or via gestures such as American Sign Language (ASL). Expression or expressive language is the ability to send a meaningful message to someone verbally, in writing, or by using gestures. An additional goal of expressive language is that it is socially appropriate, which means knowing what and how to say something in a given circumstance. Speech Language Therapists refer to the social part of language as pragmatic language. Production is how the message is created. With speech, we can think about fluency, speech sounds, and their sound quality or intelligibility. With writing, we can look at legibility, and with signs, you can think of well-formed, readable signs. The goal of production is that the person you are trying to communicate with can understand your message. When something interferes with somebody’s receptive language, expressive language, pragmatic language, articulation, fluency, voice quality, or even swallowing, speech therapy can help a person to improve both communication and swallowing.
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