{"id":406,"date":"2008-07-01T17:28:07","date_gmt":"2008-07-01T16:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=406"},"modified":"2014-07-29T10:18:36","modified_gmt":"2014-07-29T09:18:36","slug":"liz-wager-speechless-with-admiration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2008\/07\/01\/liz-wager-speechless-with-admiration\/","title":{"rendered":"Liz Wager: Speechless with admiration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bmj.com\/site\/blog\/icons\/lizwager.jpg\" alt=\"Liz Wager\" width=\"162\" height=\"110\" align=\"left\" \/>Losing your power of speech is the stuff of nightmares but is a reality to many people after a stroke. I\u2019ve just been on a one-day workshop run by Connect, a charity that works for people with aphasia, and it was inspiring.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Exactly why I was there is too long a story for this blog, but let\u2019s just say I wasn\u2019t sure what to expect and was rather daunted to be surrounded by speech &amp; language therapists and professional carers \u2013 but being unprepared and at the bottom of the class is an experience that an extrovert and disgustingly confident trainer like me probably ought to seek out at least once a year.<\/p>\n<p>But my initial apprehension was nothing compared with discovering that part of the training was to have a 20 minute conversation with a volunteer with aphasia. What a rewarding experience this turned out to be.<\/p>\n<p>My volunteer trainer couldn\u2019t say a single word, and her writing skills were limited as she had lost the use of her normal writing hand, but thanks to her skills (definitely not mine) and the techniques and resources recommended by Connect, I found out about her and her family, we exchanged views about US cities we\u2019d both visited, and discovered we share a love of gardening and the same taste in handbags.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve had many far less enlightening chats with people who can talk. And when, with the help of the Connect trainer, and a specially devised evaluation sheet, my conversation partner indicated that she\u2019d enjoyed the conversation too, and that I\u2019d managed to remember to do at least some of the things we were told to do in the lectures, I was over the moon. (And hugely relieved that the feedback didn\u2019t pick up on the way I kept lapsing into daft gestures and improvised sign language in the way that one finds oneself whispering to somebody who\u2019s lost their voice \u2013 but perhaps that added to the entertainment factor for my conversation partner.)<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d warmly recommend the Connect training to anybody working with people who have had a stroke or have lost all or part of their speech for any other reason. You can find details at <a title=\"Connect\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ukconnect.org\" target=\"_blank\">www.ukconnect.org<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>About Liz Wager<\/strong><br \/>\nLiz Wager is a freelance writer, trainer and publications consultant who works<br \/>\nfor a number of pharmaceutical companies, communication agencies, publishers and academic institutions. She is also the Secretary of COPE (the Committee On<br \/>\nPublication Ethics) and a member of the BMJ\u2019s Ethics Committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Losing your power of speech is the stuff of nightmares but is a reality to many people after a stroke. I\u2019ve just been on a one-day workshop run by Connect, [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2008\/07\/01\/liz-wager-speechless-with-admiration\/\">More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1404],"tags":[246],"class_list":["post-406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liz-wager","tag-aphasia"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Liz Wager: Speechless with admiration - The BMJ<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2008\/07\/01\/liz-wager-speechless-with-admiration\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Liz Wager: Speechless with admiration - The BMJ\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Losing your power of speech is the stuff of nightmares but is a reality to many people after a stroke. 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