What Is a Speech Clarity Diagnostic
You are fluent. You know your material. And there are still moments where something breaks down. A patient asks you to repeat yourself, a colleague mishears something critical, or you finish a conversation with the sense that you were not quite understood the way you intended.
That gap between fluent and fully clear is exactly what the speech clarity diagnostic is designed to identify.
It is not a test. It is not a critique of your English. It is a focused 15-minute clinical conversation that gives you a precise picture of what is actually affecting your clarity and what to do about it first.
What the Diagnostic Is
The free 15-minute diagnostic is where we actually meet. You tell me what you are experiencing, what feels off, what situations feel harder than they should. I listen. Within the first few minutes I already have a clear picture of the patterns that are affecting your clarity most.
We also use that time to talk about the work itself. I will walk you through my programs, explain how coaching is structured, and answer any questions you have about whether this is the right fit for where you are right now. There is no pressure and no obligation. It is a conversation, not a sales pitch.
If you would like to send a one-minute audio recording of yourself speaking in a work context beforehand, I will listen before our call. Either way, the 15 minutes is yours.
What You Leave With
At the end of the diagnostic you leave with two things. A real sense of what the coaching involves and whether it is the right fit for where you are right now. And the start of a clinical picture. Not a complete assessment, but a first conversation with someone who is already listening carefully.
If you decide to continue into coaching, that first conversation is already the foundation. We do not start from scratch and we do not work from a generic plan. Every decision about what to focus on, what to practice, and what to address first is based on your speech, your setting, and the moments where clarity matters most for you.
That is what separates this from an app, a pronunciation course, or a general English program. The work is specific to you from the first conversation.
What I Am Actually Listening For
When someone speaks to me for the first time, I am not running through a checklist. I am listening for the whole picture, and within the first 30 seconds, that picture is already forming.
Rate and pausing. A measured pace and intentional pauses between thought groups work together to give your listener time to absorb each piece of information. You may notice this when you feel like you are speaking clearly but people still seem to be catching up.
Intonation. English uses pitch to signal meaning. When your pitch pattern does not match what the listener expects, a confident statement can sound uncertain, or a question can land like a declaration. You may notice this when your meaning feels clear to you but your listener responds as if something was off.
Word stress. English content words carry the weight of the sentence. When every word arrives with equal weight, your listener works harder to find what matters, even when every word is correct. You may notice this when colleagues seem to mishear the most important part of what you said.
Connected speech. In natural English, words within a thought group link together. When words arrive as separate units, speech can sound effortful even when every sound is accurate. You may notice this when your speech feels careful and controlled but still does not sound natural to you.
Sounds are part of the picture too. The TH, the V, vowel length and quality. They are often what people come in thinking is the issue. Sometimes they are. But they are rarely the whole story.
Who the Diagnostic Is For
The diagnostic is for multilingual doctors, nurses, and pilots who speak English fluently and are still experiencing moments where clarity breaks down. Patients who ask you to repeat yourself. Colleagues who mishear critical information. A sense that your English sounds off even when your words are right.
You would not be considering this if there were not a part of your communication you wanted to change. The diagnostic is where that conversation starts.
Before You Book
If you have been thinking about this for a while, fifteen minutes is a reasonable next step. The diagnostic is free, there is no obligation, and you will leave the call knowing more than you do now.
Book the free diagnostic →
Claire Costello is a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist with 35 years of clinical experience and a specialist certification in accent modification, specializing in speech clarity coaching for multilingual doctors, nurses, and pilots.