Can Speech Therapy Improve Mental Health?

Sometimes, the struggles you or your child is going through can feel invisible.

Mental health issues are often difficult to catch, especially if you’re not sure how to navigate communicating about them.

Children can have an especially challenging time voicing their mental health concerns.

Adding to that, many children may have undiagnosed communication barriers that feed back into their mental health.

Holistic strategies that take both mental health and speech therapy into account can be pivotal for your child’s health.

Your child being able to communicate directly about their mental health can only be a benefit to both them and the rest of your family.

There is no one way that speech disorders and mental health are linked.

They are part of a complex interaction, so may require nuanced solutions, which can include the services of a pediatric speech therapy clinic.

Addressing speech and mental health concerns together can be the strongest way to advocate for you and your family’s needs.

Speech Disorders And Mental Health

As we come to have a deeper understanding of the intersecting nature of human health, we also come to recognize the link between different areas of health is becoming clearer and clearer.

For example, it’s clear that physical and mental health affect each other in complex and nuanced ways.

Even when it comes to speech therapy, it’s becoming more common to work with behavioral health to get a greater picture of what’s going on.

Of course, going to a Washington DC speech therapy clinic is not a replacement for psychotherapy, psychiatry, or any other form of mental health counseling.

It is, however, an additional area to explore if you’ve noticed that your mental health and speech issues are connected.

A significant number of young people with emotional, social, and mental difficulties also struggle with communication and speech.

Accessing support for your mental health when you have trouble communicating what’s going on can be extraordinarily difficult.

Because of this, your speech therapist at District Speech can play a vital role in you or your child’s mental health care plan.

How Do Speech Disorders Affect A Child’s Mental Health?

Struggles with language development have been linked to the occurrence of adverse childhood experiences.

Proper communication will help your child express themselves, especially when they are experiencing certain emotions that might be difficult to process.

If your child has behaviors that have caused you concern, this may be linked to difficulties communicating.

Your child may have even learned to mask their issues with communication, so these may go unsuspected without the proper care team in hand.

This can be particularly true of kids with autism spectrum disorder, selective mutism, or ADHD.

Speech disorders cause communication issues, and this can result in low self esteem and difficulty forming friendships.

Your child might have trouble understanding the consequences of their actions.

When it’s difficult to communicate, mental health issues can go unaddressed for long periods of time.

This creates a kind of feedback loop as they continue to be unable to address what might be bothering them.

Speech therapy can address these concerns by giving your child secure attachment experiences and improving their communication.

It can also give them reflection skills, which means they’ll be better able to process their past actions and decide how they’d manage them differently.

How Do Speech Disorders Affect An Adult’s Mental Health?

Speech disorders can also have an impact on the mental health of adults.

One area where this is common is in adults who stutter when they speak.

Cognitive behavioral therapy techniques and techniques for addressing stutters are intricately linked.

Stutters can be more acute at times when you’re experiencing high anxiety, such as during an awkward moment in a conversation.

This anxiety can often create a feedback loop in which your stutter may increase, causing you more distress.

A way to address this could be telling someone you just met about your stutter up front, so that it doesn’t catch you off guard and feed into your stress.

With this out of the way, your anxiety may ease, and with that eased you may find yourself stuttering less.

This is a technique that combines both mental health practices and speech therapy for stuttering to assist your personal comfort.

Other cases where speech disorders and mental health are linked can occur with degenerative disorders, or in situations such as recovery from having a stroke.

In those cases, an adult speech therapist can help you address the specific challenges you’re facing, while mental health professionals can help you process the emotions that may come up.

Book Your Appointment With District Speech Today

If you find yourself wanting to improve your mental health by addressing your speech disorder, we can help.

We will also be there for your child if they’ve been wanting to improve their communication during their quest for better mental health.

Don’t wait, book your appointment with District Speech today.