Behind “The King’s Speech”-Speech Therapy

As one of the members of the Toastmaster club, I have been participating in a lot of meetings and experiencing the speech training for the whole semester. Just like the vast majority, I did not know that the speech training could be categorized as physical therapy until I watched the movie, “The King’s Speech.” The speech therapy, a branch of physical therapy, is a mixture of many studies such as morphology, linguistic, and psychology, to name a few. It can improve patient’s communication ability and help them engage smoothly with the society.   

Trailers of "The King's Speech"

The speech disorder could also be classified in several types: disability to choose right words to convey one’s idea, difficulty in swallowing, aphasia (cannot speak), and stammering, or stuttering that King George VI had suffered for a long time. The movie is the hit of the season and also draws the public’s attention on speech therapy. The story was written by David Seidler and the movie was directed by Tom Hooper and casted by Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, and Helena Bonham Carter. With its strong director, casts, and marketing campaign, the movie unexpectedly promoted growth of speech therapy market. People with communication difficulties started to understand that they may need to receive formal speech therapy treatment. This is a very effective and efficient way to perform healthcare communication in physical therapy.

Actually, before “The King’s Speech,” there were many good movies touching upon speech therapy, such as “Sound and Fury” (2000), “Autism: The Musical” (2007), and “Music Within” (2007).  In the next post, I will talk about the healthcare communication issues in “Sound and Fury,” to give more insights on how the physical therapy auxiliary technology such as the cochlear influenced the hearing people and the deaf people.