the speech side of things :)

[Tortoise]

bear just was brought up the topic of speech and i thought it deserved a thread!!!

i find the speech side of things exhausting and effortfull sometimes. as though i have to make such an effort to speak clearly. it never bothered me when i was younger, but now that im older (and probably speak so much more!) i sort of am more aware of it.

ok, so start talking!!!

[Ruth]

hmmm personally not to much trouble with speech anymore. One of the blessings of a fuzzy memory is that unlees it was really good or really bad I don't remember! I do have a flicker of a memory of going to see someone about my lisp which is now gone>

i do have the most appauling habit of picking up the speach patterns of whoever I'm talking to. After a while it comes out like a bad impression of thet regional accent. I nearly got myself beaten up in a chip shop in sunderland once doing that!! I think it's cos I move around so much as a kid and not at all related to Dyspraxia, just felt like sharing!

[eoakley]

I constantly have to repeat myself to people when i speak some times it can get rearly frustrateing my mum tells me i mumble, I am also very realuctant to particapate in class now, I also have a lisp,

I had speach theropy from around age 3 until i was 7 I found my early years of school very upsetting due to my speach problems the other kids used to be rearly horrible, i was unable to interact with the other children properly so at playtime i would just be by myself.

[Bear_ate_my_coffee]

bear just was brought up the topic of speech and i thought it deserved a thread!!!

Thanks for making a thread about Tortoise. It nice to hear from people who had similar difficulties so you don't feel so odd.

Well the Dyspraxia I was officially diagnosis with is DVD (developmental verbal dyspraxia). So my problems with Dyspraxia is almost solely verbal. I'm happy to say my speech has improved greatly over the years. My speech is mostly "normal" nowadays yet I still have trouble pronouncing some sounds ('L' at being at words comes out as 'Y'. For example word 'Lucky' comes out 'Yucky'. Also the 'Th' e.g. 'Three' comes out 'Tree') and long words are hard for me. Also my voice is a bit immature, in other words I have a little girls voice. Oh and I can't whistle and I have a horrible singing voice.

As a child however it was pretty bad the other children could only understand about half of what I said (which of course interfered with making friends) I was constantly asked to repeat myself by my teachers, I absolutely hated have to read out loud with the class or do spoken essays and it also had a dramatic affect on my spelling and reading because when it came to a word I didn't know I couldn't 'sound it out' so I had to solely depend on memorizing words.

[monkey]

i have always had some problems with speech and im on a waiting list to see a speech langae theripist. i didnt start talking untill i was three and then it was almost imposible to understand for years afterwards. now my speech is good except when i get nervice or tiered or stressed. i sometimes stutter.

[rhubarb_crumble]

My speech is okay most of the time but it can be problematic particuarly if I'm under stress or am tired. Sometimes I freeze up or the words in my sentence will be jumbled up. I know what I'm trying to say but it just comes out wrong. 'It sounded better in my head' is something I often think.

Occasionally I will get muddled up with my R's and W's which unfortunatley gets noticed. I couldn't correctly pronounce words with the collaboartion 'th' until I was 13 but that is under control now. In fact I had most difficulty with collaboration sounds. A while back I was looking at old reports about me from when I was statemented at School, one comment I noticed which was written when I was in year 7 said 'May sound babyish when reading aloud'. I wonder if that's because my voice is immature of if it's because at the time I still couldn't pronounce some sounds.

[mr_mallow]

My speech is okay most of the time but it can be problematic particuarly if I'm under stress or am tired. Sometimes I freeze up or the words in my sentence will be jumbled up. I know what I'm trying to say but it just comes out wrong. 'It sounded better in my head' is something I often think.

Thats exactly the trouble I have. i lose words alot too, so there are times when half way through a sentance there will be a big "uummmmmmmmm" in there. Which does make people look at me as if i'm some sort of idiot.

[Pooky]

My speech is okay most of the time but it can be problematic particuarly if I'm under stress or am tired. Sometimes I freeze up or the words in my sentence will be jumbled up. I know what I'm trying to say but it just comes out wrong. 'It sounded better in my head' is something I often think.

This sounds like me, I also suffer with simple words just jumping out of my head when I go to say them. It is embarassing when you end up describing around a word that you want to say because it jumps to the back of your end and you can't get it.

I also have a slight stammer when I am in a stressful situation or I am under pressure to perform.

There are also certain words I can not pronounce even after practising. I used to suffer with th pronouncing "three" as "free", however I seem to have cured myself of that nowadays through practising. No matter how hard I try though I still can't get my head around pronouncing "specific" and "pacific" differently.

Something that does frustrate me though is people asking me to repeat things all the time, I mean when I listen to myself it sounds okay. I know I talk faster than most people.

People also tend to mis-interpretate what I am saying, especially embarassing when ordering food from the the takeaway. I do find myself trying to avoid putting myself in those situations when clarity is important.

[Philip]

An interesting thread so thanks for bringing this up =D>

Even though I have speech theropy when I was younger. My speech is okay some of the time

Sometimes I will tend to freeze up (if i am unsure what I am wanting to say or I do not know the person that well) I have difficultly pronoucing some words. I have quite often lose my words and sometimes comes out all jumbled

I have also find myself quite often to have to constantly repeat myself (a number of times mainly work colleagues (which has cause some problems :*( ), sometimes family members etc.) When I was at school, college and further eduction some of the teachers/tutors, students could not understand what I was saying some of the time

I have also been mis-interpretate/mis-understood what I have said, for example (some of the work colleagues I have worked with in the past) this can quite frustrating at times and had often resulted into problems

Once or twice I have been told to "shut up" or "keep quiet" or (something a long those lines) a few times (so far) if I cannot talk properly to be understood

Going down another path of speech - quite often when someone phones when I am at home during the day. The person phoning sometimes will have great diffcultly understanding what I am saying (sometimes our phone plays up) - once or twice it has been known for the person to hang up on me before I have finished speaking

[Daniel]

My experiences pretty much mirror those of Pooky with words disappearing when you need them, stammering when nervous or under pressure and having certain pronouncation difficulties. I also tend to speak to quickly and quietly, although I can rectify the former if I'm concentrating on what I'm saying.

Losing words is very frustrating though. There's a word I've been trying to remember today, and it's been on the tip of my tongue but it just won't appear. It's worse on the spur of the moment, especially in a job interview say, where there's a good word you want to use that will correctly sum something up and it escapes you at the critical moment, leaving you to stumble and quickly replace it with a less satisfactory alternative. Annoying!

[nick]

this is an interesting thread, i can relate to everthing that people have said from the tip of the tounge to the muttering and mumbling at times to the other extreme of talking way to loud and to fast. i also find that when i'm tired and stressed i kind of munch down on word half way through or i slurr, another one is when i break into a high pitch as if my voice is breaking and i'm 44 years old. its so frustrating trying to communicate sometimes and their seems no respite because if i try and write what i want to say, well i'm dyspraxic so that a real chour and i'm a hopless typer to boot.

[fuzzy]

I often loose my train of thought during a sentence and have to ask the perosn what I was talking about!! I also absolutley cannot cope with more than one perosn talking to me at a time- I have to tell one of them to zip it! LOL!

[arthmelow]

I seem to have the "th" and "f" problem that most other people have described here, but I usually pronounce "f" sounds as "th" rather than the other way round!

I had speech therapy between the ages of 4 and 6 and even now they sound the same to me, I only know they're different because people tell me so and my mouth is in a different position when pronouncing either of them. In normal speech now I'll randomly mix up sounds within the sentence, or even switch words with their opposites ( either literally or opposite in context ), or something related ( so plant may become soil if the conversation is about gardening ).

I'll get tongue tied if placed on the spot or trying to explain a list of things from my head, and stutter as well. This is not so good for work when someone asks "so, what happens in a manicure then?" and the giant list in my head is there but I get tongue tied getting it all out.

Plus, all my words mangle up. This happens when typing, writing and speaking. I keep spotting my old posts here and spotting mistakes in my grammar that make NO sense at all except if you imagine several voices phrasing the ideas in my head at once and I'm randomly switching voices half way through a sentence.