Everyone can benefit from learning word finding strategies. You don’t need to be diagnosed with a word finding difficulty. I always remind kids that everyone has word finding problems: their parents, their teachers, their SLPs….everyone!
One of my favorite word finding stories comes from my dad. To appreciate this story, you need to know the context of the 60s: there were Standard Oil gas stations, Texaco, Gulf, Skelly, Clark, Esso, DX, Humble….All sorts of service station names. Of course, you didn’t fill your own tank. Your gas was pumped for you and the the windshield washed, but I digress. My dad always used word associations to remember new acquaintances’ names. He came home one afternoon, laughing at his own faux pas:
He went into a meeting with his new secretary (that isn’t a politically-correct term, either!). He remembered that her name was the name of the local service station. So he introduced his new secretary to the team as “Mary Skelly.” She discretely turned to him and reminded him that her name was “Mary Clark”!! He never forgot her name after that!
We ALL can benefit from word finding strategies!