The other day, I was doing evaluations at the Dinamic Equilibrium clinic in Bucharest. The next child to come was about 4 years old, I didn’t know his speech condition. We were sitting in the big therapy room on the second floor, waiting for the family to come. Suddenly I heard voices from the entrance floor, new sounds which I didn’t recognize, probably the family for evaluation. I heard the voice of a child answering, requesting, attending verbally. There were no clear sounds, vowels or consonants, definitely no words, but there was intention and certainty in the voice.
Backwards calculation took place, and I declared in the room to my colleagues that I can write down the program of the child who just entered the clinic, after no more than 30 sec of hearing him from a distance. I wrote it down and we compared it after the evaluation; it was fully accurate.
It is not always the case to able to understand the picture so quickly, sometimes it take days or weeks, usually half an hour. In this case it was very clear to me that he can’t imitate sounds since he tried to use words or voices but couldn’t produce even an accurate vowel. Even if he had accurate spontaneous sounds, not necessarily he could imitate them. His intention and tone of voice presented communication and will. So, if he is 4 years old who wants to communicate and understands the basic language at least, then he is been struggling for 2-3 years already. He still can’t produce /A/ correctly which means that his difficulty is fundamental. I guessed that he couldn’t blow or imitate oral movements and I was correct. Since he was communicating in this way, using this tone and since they came to practice speech, I guessed his basic cognitive level must be good. And I was correct.
The program I set upfront included blowing, oral imitation, and stabilizing spontaneous sounds, and that was the program they got to practice at home. It took 30 seconds of listening from a distance to determine that. The reasons it was possible were a lot of knowledge, experience, analysis skill, luck and clarity. I could see a clear picture of the speech skill and surroundings which allowed me easily to set a program.
Clarity means the quality of being clear, easy to understand, and free from confusion or ambiguity. Clarity is the state of being easily perceived, understood, or expressed — whether in thought, speech, writing, or vision. It involves the ability to Organize thoughts logically, Express ideas accurately, and Perceive situations without distortion or confusion.
In communication it is the ability to deliver a message, so the listener or reader easily understands the intended meaning — with no unnecessary complexity or vagueness
When I think of clarity, I imagine the blue sky which represents clarity of the mind. Dark sky, rain and thunder which represent confusion and tangled thoughts, a maze with no way out. Clarity is simplicity, even for the most complex concept. Getting clarity is a process that can be taken and learnt. It can be divided into receptive and expressive clarity. Understating is easier and pre-requisite for the expressive skill. Receptive clarity depends on a few factors: previous knowledge, mapping variables, grouping variables, understanding the interaction between and within groups of variables, understanding the meaning of data and consequences. Expressive clarity also depends on the ability to express the understating in a simplified way, adapted to the receptive partner needs.
Clarity is also connected to efficiency. The less tangled explanation is eventually more efficient, with less energy consuming from the provider and the discussion partner.
We can find the need for clarity in the therapy system in different places – evaluation, analysis, practice, guiding, or teaching. In evaluation and analysis processes good clarity will allow setting an accurate program. In practice it will allow fluent and accurate execution of the program. In guidance and teaching it will allow high delivery level of the materials and better understanding.
