Aphasia and Spontaneous Recovery

Let's talk about spontaneous recovery. So after you have a brain injury, there's this period of time where you're very likely to have a lot of spontaneous recovery. That means- let's say you had a stroke and immediately after you could not do any voicing, you couldn't say any words you couldn't put sentences together, but then as a few days go by, you're able to do a little more and then more time goes by and you can do a little more. That's spontaneous recovery. So someone might ask- if there's this spontaneous recovery should we just not do speech therapy during that time? And the answer is no. No, you should do speech therapy because it can help boost and bolster that spontaneous recovery.

Because we just don't know how much you're going to recover on your own versus with speech therapy. We want to do everything that we can to help your recovery look the way you want it to look. And that means just working at it. That means doing the speech therapy and taking charge, and that's going to help you feel more empowered and more motivated.

And all of that affects your recovery- Just being able to keep a somewhat positive or hopeful outlook that can help keep you going to therapy, making progress even when the chips are down, even when you feel like you're not making progress.