By Sara Stallard
The Super Duper Speech Company (circa 1989) would like to emphasize ten things which you need to understand about the person who does your speech therapy:
- It’s not “speech therapist;” it’s “speech-language pathologist.”
- Your speech-language pathologist is definitely a woman.
- Your speech-language pathologist hides behind her desk.
- Your speech-language pathologist has bugged out eyes.
- Your speech-language pathologist has crazy hair.
- Your speech-language pathologist writes notes to your parents.
- Your speech-language pathologist is responsible for your behavior on the school bus.
- Your speech-language pathologist hoards her trash.
- Your speech-language pathologist is proud to be a speechaholic.
- Your speech-language pathologist is a wannabe expert in fine arts restoration.
I have a penchant for collecting visual material of all sorts, and during one of my regular foraying expeditions, I discovered this gem among a bunch of other equally cheerful posters, such as one featuring a magenta brontosaurus imploring us with the entreatment, “Don’t let good speech become extinct.” Hoo boy, what a masterpiece: the Super Duper Speech Company definitely hit on the formula for marketing speech as the pinnacle to attain, the reward at the top of a long arduous winding alpine path, the one so many of us have traveled and given up on.
No effing way… In regard to my supposed admiration of this masterpiece, I’ve been lying through my clenched teeth… The speechaholic poster is one of the strangest things I have ever seen, in the long and illustrious history of all graphic materials ever produced (for those not in the know, I received a few years worth of quality education in graphic design and art history at RIT). Good design means good communication—but just what exactly does the speechaholic poster communicate?
Consider the garish red of the background. How much more aggressive can color get? Also observe the absolute insistence upon authority, in all matters linguistic and vocal—it’s imperative that you understand how “notes” are sent to parents, instead of “requests” or “recommendations.” The intention behind this poster is to establish the boundaries of the speech-language pathologist’s territory—the poster is designed to go up on an office door, and I am sharply reminded of the alley cats who leave their pugnacious spray marks on my front door in their fight over the exclusive right to occupy the porch.
Only a nutcase would believe that this poster could put clients at ease—wait, did I say “clients”? Sorry, I meant “patients.” But then again, in the pathologizing of deaf people, it’s not only “patients” that we are, we’re also invisible subjects, seen nowhere in the speech-language pathologist’s megalomaniac bubble. In this remarkable piece of work, there are no deaf children with chubby cute fingers in the picture, nor gap-toothed stutterers or doe-eyed angels with Down Syndrome (and this is from before political correctness!)—in this picture, the speech-language pathologist exists for herself alone. She’s completely disassociated from those who are supposed to receive the fruits of her benevolence, and the Super Duper Speech Company wants to make this absolutely clear to everybody. The speech-language pathologist is a giant in her own right.
Some kid out there protested this insanity long ago. I applaud the little upstart for his or her truly courageous act of resistance: the little poster-within-the-poster, with the proclamation “I [heart] Speech!?!”, was violated by graffiti. Our unknown hero brandished a pen and did a Zorro on the little poster, making a thin but clear X over the image. This ultimately resulted in number ten on the list above. Our crafty and talented speech-language pathologist used white-out to lovingly restore her poster (along with red marker for the heart—how evocative of grammatical corrections this is!). My, my, this makes for a cute case study of socio-political aesthetics: contemplate the significance of white-out and its potential uses as a creative motif in depicting the myriad approaches of how society deals with deaf people and other deviants. How much does society try to cover up? And how blatant are they about it?
I swear, every time I look at this poster, I snicker. What the heck was the publisher thinking? Is speech therapy really that scary? I don’t remember it being that uncomfortable—I actually enjoyed speech hour. In fact, I won the elementary school award one year, for being “best speech student,” back when I was a gormless second grader, strutting around making clucking sounds in the back of my throat in deep study of the vocal velar plosive, “g.” I’m told it was cute, but they’re lying, aren’t they? It must have been extremely annoying. Anyway, if any of you teachers, designers, scientists, and stuffy bureaucrats in state educational departments out there want to promote speech as a worthwhile and comfortable pursuit to be embraced by the deaf, signing and non-signing alike, Super Duper’s approach is the perfect way to fail. Apparently Super Duper has wised up and discontinued the poster series.
Sara Stallard loves art, books, cats, and urban landscapes. When she’s not reading, writing or challenging her friends to Scrabble, she can be found prowling around DC’s Eastern Market in search of the perfect cup of coffee. She also enjoys dancing and gardening.
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24 Comments
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This is hilarious, and it’s true about speech therapists. I was very close to one of them, and she always would write notes to my mother, noting what areas I needed to work on later at home, and that I needed to improve on my Rs.
Years later, I still can’t do the Rs. They come out as “Aws.” I’ve been told that I have a very good grasp of English for someone from a foreign country, say, Eastern Europe. It always strikes me as funny whenever I get that ‘hearing’ compliment, and they turn red when I tell them that I’m deaf and that I’m from Texas.
Sure, Texas may seem like a foreign country, but…heh.
Yes, I get Europe a lot. Oddly enough, numerous people have narrowed it down to a city: Belfast.
Although it initially annoyed me, I’ve begun taking it as a compliment!
LOL… funny article!
I’m probably going to get in trouble for this but I simply HAVE to ask:
What’s up with Number 2 (Your speech-language pathologist is definitely a woman)? It’s definitely true. And when I joined the Deaf Bilingual Coalition at the recent AG Bell conference — the one with the “TALK for a Lifetime” badges — one of the first things the DBC noticed was that the conference was almost entirely women.
I have an educated guess about why this is so. But rather than put my foot in my mouth (I’ve done that enough already, thank you very much) I’d like to see what other people have to say about this. :)
Best regards,
Drolz
Excellent posting, Sara… I must admit, I was certain you were being entirely sarcastic from the start of the article to the end. I thought, “This is a beautifully written piece of irony, showing the hypocrisy of Speech Language Pathology.” But when I checked the Super Duper website, it is FOR REAL!!! I can’t believe any company would actually publish a poster that is so TOTALLY ridiculous! Speechaholic indeed!
Yes, I’ve known plenty of Speechaholics in my career, and I think a 12 Step Group would be a good place to start: Step 1 - We Admit We Are Powerless Over Speech!! Now that I think about it, that’s probably true.. Some Deaf kids “get it” with speech, and some don’t have that talent.
Nice job, and its given me lots to think about.
Absolutely mirth-provoking! True about #5. Maybe being speechaholic accompanied by compusliveness results in crazy hair!
The two speech therapists I had were the opposite of each other. The great one knew ASL, and spoke it very well.
The crappy one didn’t know ASL, but then, I don’t think she know very much about *anything*! :P Ironically enough, the great speech therapist had worse hair than the crappy one… Hmm. Maybe we need to do a statistical study of this? ;)
You enjoyed speech therapy? Ugh.
You realize this is the Deaf equivalent of saying you love going to the dentist?
You’re a sick puppy, Sara…and I mean that, um, in the politest way possible. :-)
Nobody in their right mind enjoys speech therapy. I didn’t. My classmates didn’t. It was torture and we were always happy when it was over.
The posters accurately reflect the overall experience (obviously not for you!) for me, and I’m all for showing how unpleasant speech therapy really is.
I LOVE SPEECH! In fact, I miss it. I’m even wondering if there’s an adult version of it, although I don’t really need to go anymore. I’m even considering buying a speech therapy software just to stay in practice.
I have just tossed my cookies.
You’re another sick puppy.
Would you consider us sick puppies if we listened to books on audiotapes in order to hear better with our cochlear implants?
Quite possibly the best listening practice ever, too.
this sick puppy here likes to listen to children’s songs and folk ballads with her analog hearing aid :) ah, the beauty of words and the sounds they make!
Noelle, you didn’t read my posting carefully.
I said “enjoying speech therapy is equivalent of enjoying having your teeth done by your dentist.”
That’s all.
*laugh*
I really do have some good memories of speech hour… I guess Super Duper should’ve visited CSD Fremont!
Pretty funny.
Yeah, ours were called speech specialists, and all of them were women.
And I called them “Speech Witches” The kids at my school hated going to speech hour. We were always fighting with the teachers. Only one girl successfully protested. She flat-out refused to go, and would run off somewhere else for 1 hour, return and sit for her lessons.
I got kicked every time I said a letter wrong.
So, not a pleasant experience for me.
You’re not going to believe it…but my first speech therapist (yes, I called HIM that) was a man.
I quickly “graduated” to a woman. In all honesty, she filled in for the man one day and I really clicked with her. Didn’t take my mom a minute to think about switching me to the woman in the office. She was definitely more nurturing. The male speech therapist used a popsicle stick to position my tongue in the right spot. On the other hand, the woman was patient and kept asking me to try over and over until I “got it.”
Very nice post, Sara. I enjoyed it. The posters were funny — keep up the graphics.
Hana, you got kicked?! Curious, in which year/decade did that happen?? Corporal punishment largely disappeared from American schools during the late 1980s and early 1990s, but I’m sure it hasn’t been eradicated completely…
Cookies, popsicle stick, eh? I would have been the one doing the kicking!
Michele Ketcham, the thing that makes me toss my cookies is the prevention or suppression of sign language… My parents are hearing and they wanted me to be able to use what residual hearing I had, as well as to be able to maximize whatever speech I was capable of, hence my speech therapy and listening skills training, but they were farsighted enough to learn how to sign first, and they made sure I became a good communicator in both ASL and English. They fought the school district because the district did not want to fork over the money for an education at a deaf school, citing my intelligence as proof of the likelihood that I would succeed academically in a mainstream setting (read: social isolation). I’m so grateful that my parents wanted me to be around other signers as much as possible… Parents and other caregivers who neglect or willfully omit this important part of a deaf child’s upbringing are what make me wanna hurl…
Opps double post. sorry!
Ha ha! This brings back some rather unpleasant memories of speech therapy! I speak well enough to pass as so thank goodness I don’t have to go through that again. Phew!
I was mainstreamed as a child in public school. I had to see my speech therapist twice weekly. If I didn’t practice my speech lessons, she’d get upset. I was afraid of her as she tended to overreact to every thing.
I love Hana’s nickname for them. Speech witches. ha ha.
Sara, here’s a dubious thank you for those memories. LOL.
I’ve had quite several speech therapists when growing up at a deaf school. Usually, it is two times a week for an hour each and the older I get, it was only for one time a week. I don’t recall myself looking forward to it although my experience with speech therapists were generally positive and they all sign. To this day, I still struggle with “ch” sound — I think is a combination of “sh” and “k” that I’m able to prounounce as an individual sound. I liken speech therapy to extracurricular activities or sports where not everyone excel. One thing I do not appreciate is how candies are used to bribe and I cringe when seeing speech therapists still do that with deaf children.
What I despise the most is the hearing tests where stuff gets pushed into my ears and I have to raise my hand for whatever sound coming from the other end of the glass window. Sometimes tinnitus gets in the way and it confuses me further.
After I graduated from school, do I want to have a speech therapist? Thanks, but no thanks! :)
Nice post, Sara. Brought back good memories of peanut butter being used to teach me how to say “th.” This was when I was in first grade or something like that. In middle school, speech class was in a BOILER ROOM. Yes, that’s right. A boiler room. It was awful. Gloomy lighting and a big tank in the corner. I was always scared when I was in there because there were no windows and I never knew what was behind the tank. No wonder I hated speech.
Yeow. Great shades of Westside school. Such perfect material for a children’s book. Speech classes in the boiler room with Ms. Slarz.
LOL!
Sideways Stories from Wayside School, oh yeah!
Illustrated in the manner of Rotten Ralph (Nicole Rubel) or Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak)
Peanut butter and boiler rooms… Good grief!