Clarity of diction... Mmm, well, it's not really something we do, as a profession, unless it's caused by something such as a stroke or a progressive neurological disease. You might very occasionally get someone who has emotional or psychological problems which are connected with poor diction or mumbling. It would be difficult to tease out cause and effect as the voice (and so speech, secondarily) is so tightly connected with how we feel and how we see ourselves. What we don't do would be take someone who is absolutely right as rain except that they have poor diction or an unfashionable accent or something. In other words, the Henry Higgins enunciation issue. You could get a voice coach to work on that, but you don't need me to start ssaying to you "Well, when did all this start? What was happening at that time? How do you feel about it?" etc etc. (Urgh...)

A couple of other things I should mention. If anyone ever has hoarseness (or a sore throat) that lasts for more than two weeks see a doctor. It's probably nothing. If it's not nothing then all the lozenges in the world won't help. And if you ever do see a voicey type of therapist who is willing to see you without an ENT doctor's referral be very suspicious because properly registered therapists are not allowed to. It's for patients' protection, because just like all the lozenges inthe world won't help throat cancer, neither will all the speech and language therapists, whereas one surgeon will.

rgds

Phillip (Cough, cough, splutter splutter, gargle gargle!)