Speech-Language Pathology: What It Is and Common Misconceptions
What is Speech-Language Pathology?
Hi! I'm Alice, and I'm a speech-language pathologist . You may also know me by the title of "speech therapist," or just "speech pathologist." Though my field has existed for quite a few decades now, not everyone knows all of the things we can do to help people– it's more than just helping kids pronounce things!
Here are some fun facts about my profession:
Our scope of practice (things we can assess and treat) covers a few key domains: communication, cognition, and feeding/swallowing.
Our patients range all across the lifespan, from preterm infants to the elderly.
While some of us specialize in a niche area of speech pathology, while others (like me!) practice across many different age groups and treat lots of different conditions.
We work in lots of different settings, including but not limited to hospitals, schools, skilled nursing facilities, home health, and telehealth.
Our academic and clinical training includes lots of different areas of study, such as anatomy/physiology, hearing sciences, phonetics and linguistics, voice disorders, and childhood language development.
