Marvin, a client with anomic aphasia, describes learning to use Skype, order at a restaurant, take his own phone messages, use technology, and focus better on what he’s trying to communicate. He highly recommends the Aphasia Center.
What’s a lot better now is I can talk a lot better. I’m focusing better. I would have my sister call and she they would take all my messages, and but now I can take my own messages. And when I can make my phone calls, you know, I have to do it slow but I can – I get it right.
Everything was uh, a lot of my words when I had my stroke it was I couldn’t pronounce like b’s, p’s some of the words were backwards too. So I just couldn’t - I know what I wanted to say but I couldn’t, it wasn’t coming out right.
When I start writing I’m always going at an angle. I still have a little problems with that but I’m a little better since I started here with the Aphasia, you know, I can write more flat.
Speech, we did writing, vocabulary, we did flashcards, how to write out, spelling, you know, we did everything. I mean, man, I learned a lot.
Emails, how to get on the internet. I lost a lot of that when I had my stroke. I could not remember all my passwords and everything, so uh yeah, so it’s been really good.
We went out 2 or 3 times to restaurants, and uh, you had to do your own speak and tell what you want to eat. So you know, you had to get, you know, we worked on that. How to order and everything. It was good, it was a good experience.
I’m a lot patient now than I was, because I have to talk a little bit slower, and that helps me talk because I can focus on what I’m going to say and I don’t need help. Except some of the words I still mess up on, but I’m a lot better at writing and speaking and the vocabulary is been great.
I never knew how to Skype so that’s something that I’ve learned here too. So yeah. I know how to do all that now.
They, there’s always a hope that other people have this problem that can help somebody else like they’ve helped me over the past month or two.
I would like to tell them to just, understand aphasia - what causes it, and if you’re speaking to someone don’t talk so fast and slow down, and if you need to repeat something have the patience to say “hey, uh can you say that one more time or sometimes 2 times”, and just slow down and repeat yourself. And most people would do that, because they understand that you have a speech problem and you’ll get it there.
I would tell anybody that has aphasia to come here and do as much as you can because I needed it really bad here, and now I can talk and I can order food, and I can function in life, really. That’s what you’re doing is helping you go through life. You know, go on cruises – that’s what I like to do.