What Is a Language Pathologist? What Do They Do?

Speech-language pathology is a scientific study of speech, feeding, swallowing, and fluency, and every possible mechanism of speech and language. Similarly, a language pathologist is a professional who diagnoses and treats those issues. They work with both children and adults in clinics, schools, and hospitals.  

What Do They Do?

A speech pathologist has many responsibilities. Typically, they evaluate a person’s swallowing and communication abilities, diagnose underlying problems, develop a personal treatment plan, provide therapy, and lastly, maintain the patients’ progress reports.

The bottom line is, language and speech pathologist provide a wide range of therapies because they treat so many different disorders. Their responsibilities in each session may include:

·         Helping people learn how to form sounds

·         Teaching how to speak clearly and easily

·         Using exercises to strengthen muscles used to speak or swallow

·         Helping people increase the number of words they can say and/or understand

·         Working with people to improve the way they put words together in sentences

·         Providing augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems for people who have severe language disorders

·         Educating patients and their families about how to overcome challenges stemming from the communication or swallowing problem

·         Providing a type of treatment called aural rehabilitation helps improve the quality of life for people with hearing loss.

What Conditions Do They Treat?

SLPs offer therapy for people suffering from hearing loss, children with developmental delays, and people with communication and swallowing problems.

·       Speech disorders

These conditions make things difficult for people to produce sounds. Here are some examples:

Apraxia: the brain finds it difficult to guide muscles used to speak.

Stuttering: when the flow of speech is broken by repetition and pauses. 

Resonance disorders: it is caused by an obstruction such as cleft palate.

Dysarthria: this is a weakness in the muscles used in speech caused by brain injury.

·         Language disorders

Language disorders are often repetitive or expressive. Here are some examples:

Aphasia: difficulty in speaking or understanding others because of damage to the brain.

Auditory processing disorder: the brain has trouble understanding the meaning of sounds.

·         Social-communication disorders

These disorders make lives harder for people to communicate socially: greeting, asking questions, talking in ways that are appropriate, and taking part in conversations.

Swallowing disorders

Often referred to as dysphasia, these disorders are problems with eating and swallowing. Symptoms include coughing or choking during or after eating, food leaking from the mouth, weight loss, and dehydration.  

In the End

You may not realize it, but a language pathologist can change your life for good. The conditions mentioned above are nothing but life-sucking abyss. So, if you are someone who is suffering from them or know someone, be sure to consult with your nearest pathologist.