Speech Language Pathology

Focusing on speech production, perception, and comprehension disorders

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Impact
  • Provide speech therapy to children and adults with strokes/injuries/neurological conditions
  • Develop speech therapy techniques
  • Conduct research in communication science and disorders
  • Clinically treat speech, language, voice and swallowing disorders
  • Support education by working in schools
RESPONSIBILITIES
  • Evaluate speech, language, voice, and swallowing difficulties
  • Identify goals for treatment
  • Determine the root causes of communication disorders
  • Create and carry out individualized treatment plans
  • Teach clients how to improve their speech, vocabulary and sentence structure
  • Help clients strengthen muscles used to swallow
  • Prescribe speech-generating devices
SKILLS DEVELOPED
  • Working with children
  • Diagnostic and clinical best practices
  • Interpersonal communication
  • Interpreting acoustic speech signals
  • Characterizing hearing and language disorders
  • Experiment design, data collection and analysis skills
Work Environment
  • Healthcare (hospital, senior rehabilitation, NICU)
  • Education and school settings
  • Private practice
  • University and research institutions
  • Home health organizations
Occupations
  • Speech language pathologist (SLP)
  • Speech therapist
  • SLP researcher
  • Vocal coach
  • Special education teacher
  • Multilingual services
  • Clinical supervisor
Undergraduate Education
  • Select a major in linguistics, language studies, communications disorders, or similar with an SLP track
  • Take courses in statistics, hearing science, anatomy, biology, linguistics, phonetics
  • Apply for internships in clinical settings and seek observations in clinics or SLP labs
  • Take American Speech–Language–Hearing Association (ASHA) prerequisite courses
  • Complete the prerequisites for a Master’s degree in SLP
  • Apply for Master’s degree
Licensed SLP
  • Seek a Master’s degree in speech language pathology
  • Complete a clinical fellowship
  • Pass the praxis exam
  • Get state and ASHA certification
  • Maintain continuing education units (CEUs)
EXPLORE
  • Focus on key subjects: phonetics, phonology, anatomy, computer science, physics, and math
  • Seek volunteer and internship opportunities in healthcare settings and working with children or clinical populations
  • Seek information on common speech disorders

Learn more

See Also:

Audiologist, Phonetician, Auditory Neuroscientist, hearing scientist

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