Humor Use in Speech and Language Therapy in Romania

Abstract

Humor, as part of our lives, is also extremely important in different professional settings. Speech and language therapy (SLT) sector is addressing both children and adults with specific language disorders or with non-specific language disorders, secondary to different syndromes or disabilities. In the SLT area, humor is a way through which therapy sessions can be easily introduced, it being an intrinsic modality of approaching children and adults. This article illustrates the data collected in the first Romanian study regarding humor use in the SLT sector, focusing on the way humor is perceived by specialists, but at the same time on the participants’ needs regarding the enriching of the SLT field with more materials both digitally born and/or printed. This study presents extended descriptive data that help us consider humor as a vital element during speech therapy sessions, independently of the professionals’ age, gender, experience and to create a collection of data regarding humor use in speech therapy for future therapeutic effective interventions. Thus, the most relevant collected data are as follows: of the 210 participants in this research just 12 (5.7%) responded that they do not use humor in their professional sector; 94.3% use humor in language disorder therapy activities; 39% use humor in every therapeutic session; more than 68% of participants use verbal humor during their sessions; 199 (94.8%) say that therapeutic materials with humorous content are mainly presented in traditional format (physical material resources); 129 responded they use humor (61.4%) in virtual format too - (digital resources); 68 % of the participants strongly agree/agree that a humor assessment tool is necessary for the effective use of humor in language disorder therapy.