Vocal overuse can be caused by many things, including infection and psychological trauma, and voice-laden professions such as teaching are particularly affected.

The overarching term for voice disorders or problems is ‘dysphonia’ and losing your voice can be devastating. It can have a huge effect on your quality of life, including economic, social and emotional tolls, but most people don’t seek treatment as it is a highly under-diagnosed and under-treated disorder.

If you have a voice disorder and need support, the Australian Dysphonia Network is worth connecting with.

Our speech pathology and psychology clinic is located in Braddon, ACT. Call us on 5117 4890 or email reception@inpositivehealth.com to get in touch.

In Positive Health, Canberra. Nel MacBean Speech Pathologist Canberra. Campbell MacBean Psychologist Canberra.

I have to admit, I am, unashamedly, a grammar nerd. I guess that’s probably a good thing, considering I’m a speech pathologist….

There has been some talk recently of ridding our language of the innocent apostrophe (the 27^thletter of the alphabet, no less). I needed to sit down when I read that. What the?

Apparently texting on a phone (where inserting the apostrophe requires too many taps on the keyboard), website domain names and other computer text requirements just make for a cumbersome apostrophe, and it’s likely to disappear from the language altogether anyway. Really?

Or is it due to “’incorrect, lazy, ignorant and appalling’ apostrophe catastrophes”, which John Richards, the former sub-editor of the Apostrophe Protection Society (yes, it really does exist!) believes to exist amongst English-speaking humans?

As Mary Norris, the Comma Queen of the New Yorker suggests, “It just is not that hard.” Too right.

What are your thoughts? Read the article here at ABC News

Our speech pathology and psychology clinic is located in Braddon, ACT, in Canberra’s CBD. Call us on 5117 4890 or email reception@inpositivehealth.com to get in touch.

In Positive Health, Canberra. Nel MacBean Speech Pathologist Canberra. Campbell MacBean Psychologist Canberra.

It has been a while since I popped up a Facebook post. I’ve fallen out of love with Facebook recently (with so many scams, scandals and subversive spying) and I just needed a good time away. I’m sure it’s not got any better with my absence, but I thought it is probably time to start recontributing again. There is a great deal of information out there relevant to speech pathology, and I do enjoy sharing that.

To start off, why not something about reading, language and speech pathology all rolled into one. Some food for thought:

How poor reading and writing feeds the school-to-prison pipeline

Our speech pathology and psychology clinic is located in Braddon, ACT, in Canberra’s CBD. Call us on 5117 4890 or email reception@inpositivehealth.com to get in touch.

In Positive Health, Canberra. Nel MacBean Speech Pathologist Canberra. Campbell MacBean Psychologist Canberra.

So many adolescents struggle to read for pleasure, and as a parent there is a lot you can do. The phenomenon is called ‘expired expectation’, according to Margaret Merga from Curtin University, where some teens think that once they have learned to read, they don’t need to continue.

“If we really want out teenagers to continue to read, we really need to be careful not to transmit the idea to them that once they know how to read it’s not something they need to do anymore,” says Dr Merga.

There are 5 helpful steps that parents can take to encourage their children to read. I quite like all of them!

Our speech pathology and psychology clinic is located in Braddon, ACT, in Canberra’s CBD. Call us on 5117 4890 or email reception@inpositivehealth.com to get in touch.

In Positive Health, Canberra. Nel MacBean Speech Pathologist Canberra. Campbell MacBean Psychologist Canberra.