Allen with a young patient
Clear Communication Allen gives kids the tools to connect and grow By Katie Roiger | Submitted photos
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evolutionary Nat Turner once said that good communication is the bridge between confusion and clarity. When we think of communication, we often think of work meetings, talking over the week’s schedule with a spouse, or maybe just having a long chat with a friend over a cup of coffee. One thing that each of those activities assumes is the ability to communicate at all. What if you had trouble understanding when your boss is being serious or when he is joking? Or, what if you wanted to tell your friend a funny story but couldn’t form the words? “Language-speech pathology is a very broad field,” said Laura Allen, certified speech pathologist and founder of Let’s Speak for Kids in Janesville. “It also goes into social and pragmatic language skills, like understanding social rules – rules that most 18 • MARCH 2021 • Women
people are able to grow up acquiring and understanding, like when someone says hello, you’re supposed to say hello back.” Speech-language therapists like Allen have a large bag of tricks depending on their client’s needs. Some people have trouble forming sounds due to physical reasons, others have trouble finding words to express their thoughts. Others have difficulty understanding others’ speech despite being able to hear, and still others need help learning how to interpret facial expressions and nonverbal cues. “70 percent of communication, or more, is nonverbal inflections,” Allen said. “Something that kids and young adults right now are really having difficulty with is texting because you can’t look at the person or hear their voice.” Allen first became interested in speech pathology when she
