What does a Speech Language Pathologist do?
Updated: Jul 6, 2020
SLP's work with adults and children who have cognitive, speech, language, and/or voice and swallowing problems. They focus on:
Improving communication
Teaching compensatory strategies for effective communication
Rehabilitating swallow function
Restoring vocal quality, pitch and projection
Fostering cognitive skills (memory, reasoning, etc.) for daily tasks
Communication and the related disorders can lead to a change in one’s life style; loss of independence, frustration, adverse reactions from others and many times, difficulty with relationships. So, Speech Pathologist's during the course or “journey” of therapy, need to look at all possible contributing factors and incorporate a wide range of intervention plans to help these individuals overcome and cope with their communication and/or swallowing disorders.
WHAT DO THE TERMS SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND COMMUNICATION MEAN?
Speech is a large part of language, that we use on a “everyday” basis. It is the physical production of speech sounds, and these sounds are joined together based on the rules of the language to form words and eventually sentences.
Language, on the other hand, is much more than speech it is the way we combine words to convey a meaningful message.
Communication is an everyday experience and it includes not only words, but also nonverbal messages, written words, facial expressions and gestures.
WHAT DO SLP's WORK ON IN THERAPY?
In Children