Having seen its crippling and isolating effects, the speech and language therapist has made it her life mission to raise awareness and provide a voice for those who have lost their ability to communicate.
Khoo is especially troubled by the “common misconception that people with aphasia are stupid”.
“People often associate fluency with intelligence; we think that somebody who’s eloquent is very intelligent. But a person with aphasia knows far more than they can express. They have a wealth of knowledge in their minds – they just have difficulty communicating it,” she explained.
Khoo uses an analogy to help others understand the frustration that comes with aphasia: “Imagine you don’t speak or understand Polish and you’re suddenly teleported to Poland. You’re handed a menu that has no pictures, only foreign words, and the waiter comes up to you speaking in Polish. How would you feel? How would you order your food?”
For someone with aphasia, this is not an isolated, once-off incident. “It’s their daily existence,” she said.
AN INTEREST IN COMMUNICATION LED TO A LIFE-CHANGING CAREER
Khoo had always been fascinated by language and communication. After earning her degree in communication studies, Khoo explored several career options, eventually landing a marketing job for a company that works with children with dyslexia. It was during that time that she discovered the field of speech therapy.
Her first experience observing a speech therapist in action in a public hospital was eye-opening. The speech therapist was assisting an ear, nose and throat specialist with a laryngoscopy, a procedure that allows the larynx (voice box), vocal cords, and back of the throat to be examined.
“I think I nearly fainted (at the sight),” she said. “But it changed the way I viewed the profession – it could be ‘soft’ but also so medical and scientific. That really piqued my interest.”
