Four Tips For Practicing Speech In Front Of A Mirror With Your New Electrolarynx
Even if you have a very high quality electrolarynx that can produce a wide variety of different speech tones, the mechanical timbre of the sound will often make it difficult for you to be understood. To mitigate this problem, you'll need to practice your speech both alone and in front of other people. To help you when you're practicing your speech alone in front of a mirror, use these four tips.
Have A Set Phrase That You Can Sound Out And Tweak From Session To Session
You won't be able to properly evaluate your progress if you're always saying different things for different speech sessions. Additionally, it'll be much easier to focus on details of your tongue, lip, and air stream movements when you already have the muscle memory from a particular phrase.
Make sure that the phrase you choose has a wide variety of consonant sounds so that you don't fall behind with making one sound at the expense of another. If you're bored with a phrase, add something to the end of it as an extra challenge.
Keep Your Posture Straight And Watch Your Breathing
If you want to get the most out of the air stream coming up from your lungs, you need to keep a perfectly straight posture at all times. So in addition to watching the movements of your lips with the mirror, ensure that your shoulders are level with each other and not slanted relative to the wall behind you.
From time to time during your sessions, turn to one side and examine your back directly to ensure that it's straight. While you're at it, take a few deep breaths and watch your torso. If you're using your diaphragm properly, inhalation and exhalation movements should be smooth, steady, and comfortable.
Consistently Pronounce Words More Slowly Than You Would Normally
Take advantage of the fact that no one is there to put time pressure on you when you're completely alone. Although you should never pronounce words so slowly that they become unintelligible, it almost never hurts to take things a little more slowly than your natural inclinations would lead you.
Instead of whispering, sound out the words as forcefully as you can without shouting so that each consonant enunciation you make won't become soft and blend in with the ones before and after it.
Switch Out The Hand You're Placing On The Electrolarynx Every Few Minutes
This will give each of your hands the muscle memory to make the movement up to your neck almost as soon as you need to speak. When you're in a large crowd and someone begins talking to you while your dominant hand is holding something, this will come in very handy.
For more tips about adjusting to life with an electrolarynx, contact a company like ROMET® ELECTRONIC LARYNX & ACCESSORIES.