A few years ago I had two clients who exhibited some unusual ‘speaking patterns’ that impacted their communication as much as their mispronunciations.

The first had an abundance of up and down pitches, or notes, as he spoke. He used these pitches to emphasize his message, but the frequency of them interfered with his message. Listeners couldn’t tell which words were actually important. He had taken an accent modification program a few years prior, and the program he used with his coach taught him to use these patterns. He learned very well, unfortunately, too well. The result was an unusual ‘sing-song’ style of speech.

While pitch is important to the message and syllable stress of words, too much pitch change is very disruptive, and makes a speaker sound ‘odd’. This gentleman came from a Middle Eastern country where pitch change is very limited. While the goal of incorporating more pitch change into his speech was probably great, it was considerably overdone.

Another client from an Asian country had a habit of EMPHASIZING his WORDS with too much VOLUME. As a result, this very nice, mild mannered man sounded angry and impatient all the time. It was a bit like SHOUTING in an email by using all capitals.

A solid knowledge base and good client management is critical for coaches. We must not only evaluate to determine the patterns of communication errors, but also to make sure that clients don’t ‘over correct’ during the learning process. Assessment must be ongoing throughout the practice sessions. We also must teach clients to self-evaluate as they practice and speak on a daily basis. This is a step that is extremely difficult to do with self-help programs. We don’t want to instill new bad habits to replace the old bad habits.

Sharon Heffley is a speech-language pathologist specializing in communication skills for accented individuals. She can be reached at 1-888-758-5353 or visit her website at www.accentmodification.com