Speech clinic helps transgender clients

STORRS, Conn. (AP) — Speech pathologists at the University of Connecticut are helping transgender clients make a more successful transition.

The school's Speech and Hearing Clinic offers speech therapy to teach transgender people how to develop a voice that matches the sex they identify with.

Clients spend about an hour a week in group sessions and another 90 minutes in one-on-one work with speech and language pathologists.

Clinic director Wendy Chase says it's more involved than simply changing a voice's pitch. She says clients work on everything from resonance to delivery to hand gestures.

Sylvia Wojcik (WOH'-chik) has spent several years in therapy at UConn and elsewhere. She says she felt a sense of validation the first time someone identified her on the phone as a woman.