SLP Services for Accent Modification
SLPs can help with:
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Increasing productivity
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Speech that is easily understood by others
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Confidence in speaking
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Improving understanding of conversational English
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Improving levels of customer/client satisfaction
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Effective and efficient teamwork
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Fewer miscommunications and misunderstandings
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Employee retention
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Advancement in the workplace
Everyone has an accent. People sometimes want to change the way they speak. Speech-language pathologists, or SLPs, can help.
Contact Andrea Lau at Speech Vancouver if you have any concerns regarding your speech/accent. Andrea can provide assessment and therapy services in the comfort of your home, school or daycare in Vancouver and surrounding regions including: Burnaby, Richmond, Surrey, Coquitlam, North Vancouver, and West Vancouver, Surrey.
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Why Choosing the Right Speech-Language Pathologist is so Important
For accent modification therapy to be effective, it is essential to receive treatment from an experienced and trained speech-language pathology professional who is sensitive to subtle differences that are unique to your first language/dialect and accent. Andrea has the enhanced clinical training necessary to offer effective accent modification training with audibly noticeable results.
The Way We Speak
Have you ever stopped and listened to people around you? They probably all sound a little bit different, even if they speak the same language. People may sound different because they come from different parts of the country. Some people sound like they are from another country. They all sound different because of their accent. Everyone speaks with an accent. Today, people move from province to province and from country to country. One thing that we take with us no matter where we move is our accent.
Accents are a natural part of spoken languages. No one accent is better than another. It is important to know that accents are NOT a speech or language disorder.
However, accents can sometimes make it hard for you to talk with other people. People may not understand your accent. You may get frustrated because you have to repeat yourself a lot. People may focus more on your accent than on what you say. These problems can make work, school, or other activities harder. You may feel that if you had a different accent, you would be able to talk to people more easily. You may decide that you want to change your accent, a little bit or a lot.
Changing Your Accent
With hard work and practice, you can learn how to change the way you say words. Changing your accent is also known as accent modification.
It can be hard to change your accent on your own. A speech-language pathologist, or SLP, can help. As an experienced SLP working with accent modification, Andrea works with:
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People who speak English as a second language.
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People who want to change their regional accent.
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Professionals who want to communicate better at work.
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Actors who need to learn a new accent for a role.
Working With Andrea Lau
To help you with your accent, the SLP needs to understand the way you speak. Andrea will learn more about:
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How you say different sounds.
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The way you sound when you talk. This includes the rhythm of your speech and how you put stress on some sounds.
Usually in a 1:1 session, Andrea will ask you to read words and sentences, then she will also listen to how you speak in conversation. It is important for her to know what communication problems you have and what your goals are. From there, Andrea will use this information to create a treatment plan with goals that are most useful to you, and work successfully towards changing your pronunciation.
Andrea has worked with clients from a variety of language backgrounds including but not limited to: Cantonese, Mandarin, Russian, Hindi, Japanese, Vietnamese, Punjabi, Spanish, Urdu, Ukranian, Serbian, French and Gujrati.
Of note, Andrea also focuses on increasing fluency (for adults who stutter), establishing better voice projection, and correcting lisps or other articulation difficulties with adults.
Contact Andrea Lau at Speech Vancouver if you have any concerns regarding accent modification.
For more information on how Speech Vancouver can help, please phone 604 723 9589 or email: andrealau.slp@gmail.com