UMAP Cooking Group Offers Unique Approach to Speech-Language Therapy

The UMAP therapy program includes a broad and diverse range of specialized groups based on clients’ interests. In January of this year, UMAP started a cooking group that meets weekly to prepare food dishes, which the group shares with the staff at UCLL.

Led by Senior Speech-Language Pathologist Heather Parzynski and Client Services Coordinator Lisa Kraus, the cooking group aims to redevelop reading, writing, and speech-language skills that are lost with the onset of aphasia, while engaging clients in an activity that is of interest to them.

Clients research the recipe and develop a list of ingredients. Recipes and shopping lists use mostly pictures, supporting the clients’ transition back to reading. The trip to the grocery store requires them to read shopping lists, read items on shelves, ask for help to locate items, and talk with one another while at the store. They also discuss amongst themselves who will be responsible for each cooking task, such as chopping onions.

Though the group is new, they have already made several delicious dishes, including pizza, baked potato soup, cheesecake, and taco salad.

“Clients are pleased with what they can do,” says Parzynski, “Cooking empowers them, because it’s a project that they completed. It’s something of which they can be proud.”

After a stroke, it often takes quite a long time before people are able to get back into such daily activities as cooking. The group is definitely a step in the right direction for UMAP, for it helps the clients realize that the skill can be restored, and that they can continue the practice when they return home.