What Do Speech-Language Pathologists do?

Speech-language pathologist (or as many call us, speech therapists) work on the following:

Speech sounds: how we say sounds and put sounds together to form words. You may hear the terms articulation,phonology, apraxia, and dysarthria.

• articulation = trouble moving parts of mouth to produce sounds

• phonology = trouble with the rules of how sounds are produced. See the chart at the bottom of the page to help distinguish the types of phonological disorders.

• apraxia = the message from your brain to your articulators (tongue, lips, throat, etc.) is interrupted, causing speech to sound different. This is NOT due to a muscle weakness.

• dysarthria = there are many types of dysarthria. Dysarthria is caused by muscle weakness. It is very common in individuals who have had strokes, traumatic brain injuries, cerebral palsy, and more!

Language: There are two subgroups we use to distinguish language disorders.

• expressive language: how we use language to express our thoughts.

• receptive language: how we understand language.

Literacy: How we read and write. People with speech/language disorders may also struggle to read, write, and spell.

Pragmatics: The social part of language. This includes how we follow social norms (ex: taking turns talking, how close we stand to others, etc.). I like to think of it as the "extras" to language. It includes how we use our face and bodies to add to our message (ex: rolling our eyes, arms crossed, eyebrows furrowed, etc.).

Voice: How our voice sounds. Raspy, quiet, loud, hoarse, etc.

Fluency: This is how our speech flows. Someone who has interruptions to the normal flow of speech is someone who stutters.

Cognitive Communication: How we think, solve problems, remember, pay attention, organize, and more.

Feeding and Swallowing: how we eat and drink. People who struggle with this have dysphagia.