Services: Communication Associates

Dr. Agin offers training in voice and speech skills in Albany and Berkeley, CA, to help you learn the vocal dynamics that enhance your communication and performance. Your voice can be:

At Communication Associates, our speech trainers are nationally certified* to give the highest quality, most effective assessment and training in voice and speech skills available internationally. We train the voice of individuals who work in various professions: business executives, managers, salesman, attorneys, politicians, performers, administrators, educators, and others. All training provided by Communication Associates includes materials, practice exercises, home assignments, and supervision and coaching for specific presentation and performance needs.

Public Speaking Training can make your voice attractive, clear, dependable and persuasive. Does your voice and speech reflect your personality? Are you an effective communicator at work? Are you satisfied with the way you sound? These are the issues speakers are most concerned about.

Today, executive education is not complete without attention to communication skills. If you are a professional seeking to further your credentials or change careers, our voice and speech training may help you advance your communication skills and promote your professional development.

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Accent Modification Training
Is your regional accent or first language dialect reducing your communication effectiveness? Accent modification training focuses on changing those elements of your voice, articulation and pronunciation that distract your listener from attending to what you are saying.

Individual and group training is available for persons with mild to moderate foreign accents, and native speakers with regional USA dialects. Training includes vocal and pitch modifications, pronunciation of vowels and consonants, speech rate and rhythm. Dr. Agin simultaneously trains you in multiple skills, thus accelerating your progress. Completing accent modification training will offer you increased confidence and ease in all of your communications.

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Singers

Dr. Agin has helped recording artists, musical theatre performers, classical music and opera soloists, rock and blues band vocalists, cantorial and choir soloists, and many others. While improving your singing and eliminating vocal problems, Dr. Agin will make your voice clear, attractive, reliable, and durable.

This training may include learning diaphragmatic breathing and the basic vocal dynamics of pitch, volume, rate, and quality, as well as oral and nasal resonance, breath control in singing, and voice projection techniques. Additional benefits of this training may include development of style, showmanship, smoother passagio, wider range and freer high voice. The applications of the skills learned are contained in exercises, and appropriate repertoire. Applying this training in voice and speech skills will improve your vocalization and expand your repertoire.

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Actors
Acting requires voice skills that exceed those of the non-professional voice user. As an actor, you need to exemplify characters or roles by making them real and vivid for the audience. You may need to project the impression of another's age, culture, emotional compass, etc.

This training in voice and speech skills will introduce basic vocal dynamics of pitch, volume, rate, and quality, including oral and nasal resonance and breath control in speech. You will master voice projection techniques and stability exercises, gaining increased reliability in voice quality, and greater command of audience attention.

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Voice Therapy is for those singers and speakers who have abused, misused or overused their voice. A voice disorder is often the result of a chronic pattern of behavior that deteriorates voice quality and vigor. It is necessary to eliminate the faulty pattern and rehabilitate the vocal mechanism, and voice usage. Frequent problems requiring rehabilitation are: hoarseness, vocal nodules, vocal cord swelling, hypernasality, and weak voice. Dr. Agin approaches these complex conditions with sensitivity, compassion, and encouragement.

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Personal Communication Coaching

Personal Communication Coaching increases the effectiveness of your communication style and skills. The essential question asked in this training is Do others listen when you speak? Clients report excellent results in listener attention, audience participation, positive feedback, and improved productivity.

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Speech Therapy is for those whose would like to correct or improve their articulation of sounds, timing, phrasing and other features of communication. Our certified speech-language therapists are skillful evaluators and produce concrete and measurable results. This rigorous individualized therapeutic approach maximizes the opportunity to use and reinforce the new speech behavior.

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Communication Workshops provide a thorough and enjoyable learning experience in a small group format of five to twenty individuals. Businesses often find that it is a wise investment to optimize the communication skills of their working professionals and maximize their job function. Participants benefit from the intensity of the learning environment, and from practical repeated experience in using the new behavior in various applications, such as accent modification.

Workshops may be two hours or one full day depending upon the nature and number of new skills to be included. The needs of the participants direct the scope of the workshop content. Popular workshop titles are:

Voice Protection and Projection: Vocal Skills for Business Managers

Accent Reduction for Speakers of English as a Second Language: Asian Countries

Engaging the Listener in your Singing

Enhance Your Acting with a Resonant Voice

Use an Authoritative Voice During Meetings

Vocal Health for Professional Speakers/Singers

Our voice and speech workshops are offered internationally at your business location. Dr. Agin teaches all programs, and when appropriate, adjunct licensed communication specialists trained by Dr. Agin may be included. Comments from workshop and course participants praise her marvelous sense of humor, effective teaching, and use of fun as a learning tool.

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* National Certificate of Clinical Competence (CCC) of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association.