Paula Sobel, MA, CCC- SLP, is a speech-language pathologist at MossRehab. You would expect a person trained to work in that field to have an understanding of the communication difficulties experienced by people recovering from  brain injuries, strokes, and other disorders. But sometimes it’s personal.

“I had an uncle who recently passed away from ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), the disease that many may recognize from the movie about Stephen Hawking’s life,” she said. “My uncle was a lawyer, and communication was critical to his profession.  As his speech deteriorated, he became harder and harder to understand. People would come to the house to talk to him and to socialize. As his speech became more difficult to understand, these people became more and more uncomfortable. They would end up talking over him to others in the room. He would get so upset because they were talking around him and over him. It was really devastating.”

Informed by experiences like that, Sobel and fellow MossRehab speech-language pathologist Pippa Sigüenza, MS, CCC- SLP, have created a new Communication  Literacy program to help educate members of the general public—helping them learn how to communicate with people who have speech, language and cognitive disorders. This program is called Communication Literacy: Setting the Stage for Successful Interaction.

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