Social Work Students and Their Apparent Speech Impediments

Okay, look, I’m really not a mean person. I will admit that I am outspoken, loud, opinionated, and impatient… but I’m not mean. For the most part. Now, given this indisputable fact, I find myself wanting to stab myself in the ears whenever certain individuals in my lectures speak up.

Owing to its nature, social work naturally demands that students be able to participate in discussions and share ideas. So, every so often, people will be prompted to voice their thoughts… or sometimes people will have something to say or ask, as per a typical class. This, in and of itself, is not a bad thing (until people start interrupting each other, but that’s something for another time). What IS a bad thing is when people stick their hands up in the air and instead of a well-formed point or coherent opinion, you hear a series of “um”s, “like”s, and “y’know”s.

I know it’s not a public speaking course nor a communications course, but come on. I would imagine that social workers are meant to be, at least on some level, articulate and able to express themselves well. Hearing a string of empty noises distracts so badly from the point you are making, which might actually be a good one, but oops no one cares because you kept telling us that “WE KNOW” when in fact we really don’t.

The counter-claim may be that social workers have plenty of time to prepare for sessions with clients. Indeed, a lot of the literature we’ve read for the course emphasizes extensive planning. But it’s not like a teacher called on you and you’re a deer stuck in headlights! You raised your hand! The implication there is that you had something to say before you did so!

My frustration with this stems purely from a lack of patience. I don’t like it when people take forever to get their point across. It’s far, far easier to just shut up and think about what you want to say and THEN say it, rather than reserve a spot in line and just wing it as the words come spilling out of your piehole. I understand that these people will probably improve their self-expression skills as they move further into the course and start their practical work, but at present, I find myself zoning out or doodling when these people start talking, if only to save the lecturer the sight of me rolling my eyes.

Then… what does that say about me? If I get weary with colleagues doling out a sputtering pile of nonsense in trying to express abstract thoughts or feelings, how will I ever be able to manage a client with the same problem? Social workers perhaps “should” develop good communication skills, but clients have no such criterion. Will a subtle personal reminder that I am here to help these people mean that I will naturally be more patient with them? Or will their rambling and empty expressions distract me from hearing their narratives or even worse, frustrate me as I try to understand them?

I am good at expressing myself. In writing or in speech, I acknowledge with no humility that it is a skill I possess at a reasonable level of proficiency. Because of this, I perhaps expect others around me to have some of this ability as well. The old “if I can do it why can’t you” chestnut, that is. Of course, this is immensely unfair to clients and I do know it is a silly expectation to have of anyone that is not me. There are an abundance of reasons as to why they are not good at self-expression, and some of those don’t even have anything to do with the fact that they need my help; plenty of people who do not need aid from social workers also do not express themselves well. It is, as most skills are, something that some people have and others do not, but it does not in and of itself make either group “better” than the other.

So what can I do, as a social worker, to better enable me to work with clients who aren’t good at expressing themselves? Could I encourage them to take their time and collect their thoughts without speaking? Is that a viable option?

I probably won’t really know what I can do until I start my practical fieldwork (June!), but I have a feeling I’m about to learn me a big ol’ dose of good ol’-fashioned patience… and, as a person as well as a social worker, I will be much better off for it.