How Speech Therapy Works
Speech-Language Pathologists work with individuals from infancy to late adulthood to promote quality of life through improved communication, cognitive and swallowing functions. These skills are invaluable to humans in day-to-day interactions and activities. Speech-language pathology is expected to grow faster than average through the year 2014. Members of the baby boom generation are now entering middle age, when the possibility of neurological disorders and associated speech, language, swallowing, and hearing impairments increase. Medical advances are also improving the survival rate of premature infants and trauma and stroke victims, who then need assessment and possible treatment. Many States now require that all newborns be screened for hearing loss and receive appropriate early intervention services. Greater awareness of the importance of early identification and diagnosis of speech, language, swallowing, and hearing disorders will also increase employment.
What is Speech Therapy?
Speech Therapy works with the full range of human communication and its disorders, speech-language pathologists evaluate, diagnose, and treat speech, language, cognitive-communication and swallowing disorders in individuals of all ages, from infants to the elderly. In addition, speech-language pathologists may teach in college and university programs, manage agencies, clinics, organizations, or private practices, engage in research to enhance knowledge about human communication processes, direct public school or clinical programs and possibly develop new methods and products to evaluate and treat speech-language disorders.
Who Benefits From Speech Therapy
Treatment will vary depending on the nature and severity of the problem, the age of the individual, and the individual's awareness of the problem. Speech-language pathologists select intervention approaches based on the highest quality of scientific evidence available in order to:
- Help individuals with articulation disorders to learn how to say speech sounds correctly
- Assist individuals with voice disorders to develop proper control of the vocal and respiratory systems for correct voice production
- Assist individuals who stutter to increase their fluency
- Help children with language disorders to improve language comprehension and production (e.g., grammar, vocabulary, and conversation, and story-telling skills)
- Assist individuals with aphasia to improve comprehension of speech and reading and production of spoken and written language
- Assist individuals with severe communication disorders with the use of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems, including speech-generating devices (SGDs)
- Help individuals with speech and language disorders and their communication partners understand the disorders to achieve more effective communication in educational, social, and vocational settings