ABSTRACT
Speech-language therapy is a complex, goal-directed activity undertaken to improve an individual’s communication. Interestingly, by traditional design speech-language therapy harbors an inherent paradox. The goal of therapy is to build communicative competence, yet the assumptions required for treatment demand that the client be incompetent. That is, the therapist expects the client to demonstrate problems with communication. Thus, both parties act in accordance with a presupposition of deficit in the individual targeted for therapy (Damico & Simmons-Mackie, 1996; Kovarsky & Maxwell, 1992; Panagos, 1996; Ripich, 1982; Simmons-Mackie, Damico, & Nelson, 1995). In keeping with this presupposition, the clinician and client implicitly adopt necessary roles as competent expert and incompetent patient in order for therapy to proceed in an orderly and efficient fashion.
