Where There Is No SLP - Language Strategies (fourth in a series)

What can you do, if your home health patient doesn't have speech therapy - but isn't communicating well with language? Problems with language skills can make a patient less competent to meet needs, share information, maintain social closesness, and observe the conversation rules of her/his community. Whether the patient is challenged for understanding and/or using language, preventing long - term effects of challenges to a patient's language status is a worthy goal of home health intervention. Where there is no SLP, what can you do help the patient to function best to meet her/his language needs?

As in the case with persons having problems hearing or with cognition, knowing the patient's hearing status will be helpful. If a patient shows you that understanding your directions requires a lot of effort, you can help by using simple language that you share by speaking clearly. Demonstrate any actions that you want the patient to initiate, by gesture and repetition. Be a patient listener to understand the patient's message. If the patient uses a communication system that depends upon skills other than oral language, confirm that you understood the patient's message.