Therapeutic speech

Speech is one of the most important forms of human communication. But it is much more than a mere vehicle for information: speech is an expression of the whole personality. Each person's voice, speech patterns and expression are unique.
It is the whole self that is involved in the production of each word: with the help of the voice, a person is able to express thoughts, feelings and intentions.
The palate, tongue, lips, and teeth create sounds that transform the airflow into words.
Consonants give shape to speech and stability. Vowels on the other hand are generally produced by the voice and are an expression of the inner self, the emotional state.
All this happens as you inhale and exhale. In effect, speech is an exhalation articulation. Breathing therefore plays a particularly important role in speech.
The therapy developed by actress Marie Steiner and her husband, Rudolf Steiner, founder of anthroposophy, incorporates all these elements. To find out where a particular patient's problems lie, the speech therapist asks the patient to read a text. The therapist then pays close attention to the patient's posture, breathing, voice, expression, level of concentration and comprehension. This basis can be used to address specific weak points:

- poor expression can be corrected, tone that is too high or too low is adjusted.
- during expressive speech, automatic breathing deepens, which is beneficial for a multitude of diseases (e.g. asthma, chronic gastrointestinal diseases, arthritis).
- In addition, the rhythm or meter of a text also has an impact on breathing. A poem written in hexameter, for example, enhances the harmony between pulse and breath in an ideal, natural 1:4 ratio (18 breaths to 72 beats of a normal pulse), and therefore has a measurable stabilizing and regenerative effect on heart and circulatory rhythms.
- Texts full of consonants carry form and stability, as opposed to texts rich in vowels, which promote emotional expression leading to release and relaxation.
- Gestures can enhance the intention to speak. Because of its fundamental intervention in the relationship between body, mind and spirit, speech and elocution therapy not only facilitates the treatment of speech disorders but also provides a specific approach to a wide variety of internal conditions, not to mention psychosomatic and mental disorders, as well as application in the field of special education.