Adult Speech and Voice Therapy Services in New York, NY
IMPROVE Your Communication
Voice & Speech Therapy for Adults in NYC
If you are an adult constrained or bothered by a seemingly minor yet complex speech, voice, or swallowing problem—such as stuttering, vocal tension or fatigue, difficulty with speech clarity, or coughing when drinking—Open Lines®’ highly personalized approach based on evidence-based clinical practice will provide you with customized, innovative solutions. We specialize in speech therapy for adults and help you quickly achieve real results with our innovative PRESENCE™ Approach.
Customized Speech Therapy Services
With evidence-based care and individualized precision, we help you improve your communication skills, voice, and/or swallowing abilities.
Our customized treatment plans help you improve your ability to speak and function effectively and efficiently. Whether it takes you two or three months, our personalized team is at your service for as long as it takes you to learn to speak with clarity and use your voice with confidence.
Seeking solutions beyond the standard treatments, we answer questions other experts do not think to ask. Going beyond general routines and an insurance-focused practice, we take an active, investigative stance exploring alternative, creative solutions customized to your specific needs, situation, and goals.
The Open Lines® PRESENCE™ Approach
Our proprietary PRESENCE™ Approach combines cutting-edge research from diverse medical fields and applies it to the speech and voice therapy programs we provide. We believe treatment entails more than just cognitive-communication or physical therapies. Our specially trained adult speech therapists also understand and work with you on the mental and emotional aspects of managing communication. This approach guides you in a forward motion to help you in the way you would like with the confidence you need to participate more fully in your life.
Nationally certified in New York, New Jersey, California, and Florida, our team consists of professional researchers/writers for prestigious journals, trusted academicians, reputable lecturers, and clinical experts who practice in and continue to collaborate with New York’s top academic medical centers and private schools, and who stay current with the latest research advancements.
Our professional team is detail-driven in its quest to design a highly personalized program customized and designed just for you. Like motivational coaches and psychological counselors, Open Lines® speech-language pathologists provide in-depth counseling within the scope of communication disorders to ensure you develop the mindset and habits necessary to build a solid foundation for meeting and sustaining your long-term goals.
Viewing all our clients as VIPs, we uniquely deliver personalized, high-end, “white glove” service. Based on your assessment, we will build a customized program based on one or more of our targeted programs.
Speech, Language & Voice Services for Adults
If you are struggling to communicate with ease and confidence, Open Lines®’ personalized and solution-focused approach is here to help you. Our adult speech therapists help you determine what is happening. They teach you how to address difficulties to optimize your communication so you may participate more fully in your life in a way that is most meaningful to you.
People often have difficulties that were not fully addressed in childhood or have developed in adulthood and are difficult to manage. These include challenges with language organization and expression, voice, stuttering, muscle tension, vocal fatigue, or articulation/speech clarity. Learn more about our services for cognitive-communication, voice, fluency, and articulation as you review frequently asked questions that follow.
Our Focus Areas
Communication difficulties can result from a variety of courses. You might experience difficulty organizing and expressing your thoughts or vocal fatigue due to vocal cord lesions or muscle tension. Whether issues were never resolved in childhood or emerged later in life, we can tailor our PRESENCE™ Approach to match your specific needs.
If your ease and confidence communicating is hampered by difficulty organizing and expressing your thoughts; vocal issues or discomfort; speech difficulties, such as stuttering, a persistent lisp, or articulation differences; you may feel like it’s impossible to speak in a way which reflects your authentic self, and this may make it difficult for you to fully participate in aspects of your life in the way you would like to.
You may struggle to feel in control of your voice and communication which affect your ability to express yourself with efficiency and confidence. These difficulties can arise from a combination of physiological and behavioral factors and can be influenced further by anxiety and emotion.
Cognitive Communication + Physical Speech Breakdowns (Non-Medical)
Difficulties speaking can result in feelings of loss of control and shame, which can then lead to a cascade of physiological responses, anxiety, and negative self-talk which impede our ability to efficiently recruit skills required for speaking demands.
Stress and anxiety can have a negative impact on a host of cognitive-linguistic skills by interrupting our attention, disrupting our thought and semantic organization, and delaying word retrieval. This can look like difficulty finding specific vocabulary in a timely manner. It includes difficulty planning and organizing ideas, which can result in multiple sentence reformulations and loss of train of thought.
Stress and anxiety may also affect your body. When a person experiences stress or anxiety, they may have trouble regulating and controlling the breath when speaking (i.e., running out of air), or they may experience muscle tension, stuttering, vocal strain, or soreness. The shame and embarrassment that frequently accompany these agonizing experiences may provoke patterns of negative self-talk and avoidance. This often results in more difficulties communicating, but all of these behaviors can be addressed and prevented!
Voice Disorders
A voice disorder refers to any symptoms that negatively impact a person’s voice. Symptoms may include difficulty varying pitch to express emotion, experiencing pain, discomfort, or fatigue when speaking, difficulty speaking loud enough to be heard, or exhibiting a hoarse, breathy, or strained vocal quality. These symptoms may be the result of one or any combination of structural, physiological, behavioral, neurological, or psychological factors.
Dysfluency Disorder
A fluency disorder (also referred to as “stuttering” or “stammering”) refers to an interruption in speech. Dysfluencies or stuttering can present as repetitions of a sound, syllable or word, hesitation when speaking, prolongation of sounds, or a stoppage of air or voice in the middle of speaking. Excessive tension, struggle behaviors, and secondary mannerisms may also co-occur.
Articulation Disorder
Articulation treatment focuses on errors in the production of individual speech sounds. Adults with articulation difficulties may substitute or distort sounds, which makes speech less clear, especially if the rate of speech is fast. People with these types of speech difficulties exhibit difficulties producing crisp, clear sounds when speaking which can make their speech hard to understand.
Gender-Affirming Voice Therapy
Individuals may seek gender-affirming voice therapy when they wish to modify aspects of their voice and communication. Within this treatment program, individuals learn to control different aspects of voice, including pitch, intonation, quality, resonance, and loudness. Different aspects of speech may also be a focus of treatment, including articulation and speech rate to help a person’s manner of communicating feel more aligned with their sense of self.
Frequently Asked Questions
Improve Your Communication Through Speech Therapy
It is never too late to correct adult speech, voice, or swallowing problems. Our team will provide the committed care needed to address a variety of challenges. Let our supportive team help.
Contact Open Lines® today by phone at 212-430-6800, by email at [email protected], or through our contact form. You can learn more about the therapeutic adult programs we offer here. If you are ready to take the next steps in treating the difficulties that hold you back, request an appointment to discuss your goals and review our service options.