How Speech Therapy Helps With Social Communication Challenges in Adults

Speech therapy can be beneficial for individuals of all ages, including adults with social communication challenges. If you’ve been diagnosed with a social communication disorder, you may be wondering if speech therapy is right for you. In fact, speech therapy is one of the best options for addressing adult communication challenges. Here’s how adult speech therapy helps with social communication disorders.

What Is Social Communication Disorder?

Social communication disorder (SCD) can present as a persistent difficulty with communicating with people for social purposes. Signs of SCD include challenges with:

• Understanding contextual meaning or ambiguous language
• Following the social rules for conversation
• Adjusting communication styles based on the situation

Social communication involves numerous components, including pragmatics, social interaction, language processing, and social cognition. Challenges with social communication are not related to intelligence or speech capabilities. Instead, it results from difficulties with social interaction and understanding. While social communication disorder is not a type of speech disorder, speech therapy can still be highly beneficial for individuals with SCD.

What Is Speech Therapy?

Speech therapy is a service provided by a speech-language pathologist designed to help individuals with speech and communication challenges. Speech-language pathologists can tailor these sessions to a patient’s unique needs, providing services based on the specific diagnosis or challenges an individual is experiencing. Sessions may include activities like tongue and mouth exercises, practicing facial movements, reading out loud, or playing word games. Speech therapy is beneficial for individuals of all ages with communication challenges, including adults with social communication challenges.

How Speech Therapy Helps Address SCD

Adult speech therapy for individuals with communication challenges may include practicing social interactions, working to understand humor and idioms, learning how and when to change topics in a conversation, understanding the rules of social conversation, and related exercises. Working with a speech-language pathologist to address communication challenges can help individuals feel more comfortable and confident with social communication.

Learn More About Speech Therapy for Social Communication Challenges

If you believe you have social communication disorder or are an adult experiencing communication challenges, Autumn Oak Speech, Voice, and Hearing can help. We offer adult speech therapy for individuals in and around Friendswood, Texas, and we’d be happy to provide you with the speech therapy services that meet your needs as well.

Our professionals can discuss your symptoms or any challenges you’re experiencing, explore various assessments or testing that may help provide a diagnosis, and determine the best path forward for you. In many cases, our speech therapy services are an important part of treatment, helping to develop the skills and knowledge individuals need to feel comfortable speaking and communicating with others.

Schedule an Appointment With Autumn Oak Speech, Voice, and Hearing

To learn more about our adult speech therapy services or related services, contact Autumn Oak Speech, Voice, and Hearing today. We’d be happy to answer your questions about speech therapy for adults with social communication challenges and get you started with an appointment at our location in Friendswood, TX.