Talk:Speech–language pathology

More Information in Patients/Clients Section
Expand the introductory paragraph on the Patients/Clients section of this article.

Speech and language problems have a large effect on a person’s academic, social, and behavioral development. Speech and language therapists work with a wide range of patients, from babies to adults. When working with and diagnosing speech problems, physicians evaluate speech development benchmarks – such as how many words and which types of phrases are being used – to start effective treatment.

The need for Speech Pathologists is increasing in all settings. The number of children diagnosed with Autism has increased dramatically as well as the Baby Boomers generation that are admitted into nursing homes and hospitals. Universities all over has seen an evident change in the number of Speech Pathology majors over the recent years which results in an extremely competitive program. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Briennafaust (talk • contribs) 02:07, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The source page should be: http://www.modernmedicine.com/modernmedicine/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=519967

I believe the article would be improved if it would include an explanation of why speech development is so important for the patients. In its current state, the article only lists who is affected. Inquisitive readers might question the value of speech development, which would be answered with this edit to the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.190.187.4 (talk) 21:20, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I feel we should take care not to confuse speech with language and not to combine the two using the word "speech." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Speak Out16 (talk • contribs) 17:47, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Separate therapist/pathologist
I think there should be a separate speech therapist page. It is a profession and I think they are entitled to their own page. reference to this page should be made clear however, as they do practice speech and language pathology. Veterinary science has a separate veterinarian page, so I think speech pathologists should have one too. There are many pages linking to speech therapist, and when users click on it they want to know what one is, not what this type of health care focuses on Bouncingmolar 17:47, 12 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed!
 * --Frogamigo 15:41, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

So can a UK qualified SLT practice in USA? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.244.133.26 (talk) 13:26, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Only if they have a Master's and meet state/ASHA criteria in terms of number of hours worked in each area, etc. More details on the RCSLT/ASHA mutual agreement on ASHA's website. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.202.182.158 (talk) 23:54, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

wrong, speech pathologist and speech therapist are the same thing — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.149.239.158 (talk) 13:39, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, they are the same thing. Most people in the USA refer to speech-language pathologists (SLPs) as “speech therapists”. The SLT profession in the UK and the SLP profession in the U.S. serve essentially the same functions. In other countries it is different (see for example this Spanish language description of logopedia / foniatria / audiología which describes how these related professions are designated in various Latin American countries - http://www.aelfa.org/logopedia2.asp?idc=16). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.241.89.253 (talk) 17:20, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

external lists
SLP1, removed some external links without reason. After reverting, SLP1 did it again saying the externals were not national. SLP1 forgot the "California Speech Language Hearing Lets talk about what to clean up. I have never seen 'national' used as a reason if good information exists.  How about international? Anyway, let's 'discuss' changes.  (I suspect the SLP1 is in California? and is part of CSLHA, and doesn't like one of the links removed?). Maybe a thorough revamping of the external list is in order, rather than selective removals. Larynxdude (talk) 12:04, 27 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi Larynxdude. Thanks for discussing here.  I don't know if you know about the guidelines for external links here WP:EL?  In short the links need to be kept to a minimum and need to be relevant and informative.  You have reverted several spam links, links to commercial websites which are to be avoided according to WP:ELNO. ,
 * You have also reincluded two other websites including National Center for Voice and Speech's official website and Network for Speech and Language Therapists which do not on first glance to be in commercial in nature, but I am not clear that their inclusion is justified. Do these websites provide any more relevant or meaningful content than the hundreds of similar ones out there? Since we can't include the hundreds, why would we include these two? Note that per WP:V you need to justify their inclusion "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material."  I believe it is better to stick to links to national SLP associations: leaving California in was a mistake on my part, and I should point out that theorizing about my motives for leaving it in is contrary to Wikipedia's guidelines on assuming good faith and recommend you avoid these types of comment in future. In any case, a quick check of my userpage would show I live nowhere near California!!  If you want these two links to be replace then feel free to state your case here. Slp1 (talk) 16:37, 27 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi SLP1. I just thought it was interesting that you removed just a couple when there were many to remove; sorry for the California comment.  So thank you for removing the bulk as many did not need to be there.  I have re-added ncvs.org and added NIDCD.  I think the www.ncvs.org one should be there as they have stuff that no one else has and send students/interns/residence there all of the time.  Most of the hundreds of websites out there just copy their stuff from ASHA, NCVS, and NIDCD anyway.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Larynxdude (talk • contribs) 00:39, 28 May 2008 (UTC)


 * See your talkpage but I disagree from multiple perspectives, including the fact that you seem to have a very US-centric viewpoint when this is a global encyclopedia. You also make some very broad accusations of plagiarism which need to be justified and proved. --Slp1 (talk) 00:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi SLP1. Yes, I am US-centric (I live in the US). So, on my last edit that you are commenting on, I put all the external links (many non-US organizations) in alphabetical order to draw attention to the US links. This is unlike just randomly trashing 3 external links before being called on it and leaving a California based one just above the three trashed? Sorry for my US-centric mindset... Larynxdude (talk) 15:02, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, thank you to all who edit this page, keeping it current and free from spam. SLP1, I understand wishing to keep the links short, but I wanted to mention a couple of sites for consideration. I believe these are two invaluable websites that provide a great deal of information for SLPs. One is Dr. Caroline Bowen's website (AUS), located at http://speech-language-therapy.com/, and the other is Dr. Judith Kuster's at http://www.mnsu.edu/comdis/kuster2/sptherapy.html (USA). I do not believe they would qualify as commercial in nature. I am the webmaster at Jennifer Taps' website, http://slpath.com, which I see was previously added and removed from this article. We have over 100 free downloadable resources for SLPs, but we do sell two documents on the site, so I can understand why our site violates your criteria. However, if you believe neither of the two websites I mentioned merit inclusion, I would ask you to clarify, as I believe they are not commercial and could provide a tremendous service to SLPs visiting this page. Thank you for your reply.

A source of potential useful references
I have noticed the requests for more citations and references to support the content of this article. There are a few online research paper collections which may provide some of the supporting references required. I hope these research paper collections of useful dolfrog (talk) 11:15, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
 * a PubMed online "Speech and Language Pathology" collection
 * a PubMed online "Communication and Language" collection
 * a PubMed online "Dorsal and Ventral Streams - functional anatomy of language" collection
 * a PubMed online "Aphasia" collection
 * a PubMed online "Autism and Regression" collection
 * a PubMed online "Specific Language Impairment (SLI)" collection
 * a PubMed online "Stuttering / Cluttering" collection
 * a CiteULike "Augmentative and Alternative Communication" research paper sharing group
 * a CiteULike "Language And Brain" research paper sharing group
 * Caution: note that these are personal selections of papers, mainly primary sources, which may have been picked to represent Dolfrog's view on the topic. WP:MEDRS guidelines are that medical articles should be sourced as far as possible from secondary sources such as review papers. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 20:01, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
 * CiteULike research paper groups share research papers and anyone can most groups and contribute the research papers from their own CiteULike research paper libraries. Gordonofcartoon seems to think I have some hidden agenda, which is not the case, I am just trying to provide the best information from international research sources to improve the understanding of many inter-related disabilities. dolfrog (talk) 14:17, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, so what is the criterion for selection? How do you define "best information"? Gordonofcartoon (talk) 17:59, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Some of my own PubMed collections have been requested by various professionals to compliment their existing collections, some have been created to identify areas of overlap between various disabilities, some to identify differences between disabilities, and all are designed to provide the best information currently available online. All PubMed listing provide links to related research papers, and reviews. CiteULike is mainly used by research professionals to bookmark share research papers of common interest. What have you got against sharing current peer reviewed research information. dolfrog (talk) 00:08, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Clarity?
I don't get it. . . as in, I don't understand what is being said. Jargon and the like =/ 131.151.90.222 (talk) 06:56, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Dysphagia
A major part of the work of an SLP is in dysphagia evaluation and treatment. The article could be improved by adding some detail about this aspect of practice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Speak Out16 (talk • contribs) 17:50, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

CiteULike Group: Speech and Language Pathology
There is a CiteuLike Group "Speech and Language Pathology" which currently lists 415 research papers. CiteuLike is free to join, you can create your own research paper library and contribute papers from your own library to the various special interest groups. This might be a useful source of citations to improve the article dolfrog (talk) 04:31, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Correction
In the "Salary by State or District" section, salary information is listed for speech-language pathology assistants, and not speech-language pathologists. This information is misleading. According the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, the annual median salary for a speech-language pathologist in 2013 is $75,000. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.228.185.219 (talk) 03:44, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
 * As the English wikipedia actually is an international wikipedia, I wonder if this section should even be here. What about salary in England, India or South-Africa??  Lova Falk     talk   14:56, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Missing References
When reading through this article I noticed several unsupported statements. One of the most obvious ones was in the salary information reporting that "the median salary was $61,000." It appears as if this citation was in the article at one point but has been removed. There has since been a more recent article from ASHA, published in 2015, that provides more up to date salary information and would be more relevant. Additionally, the entire first paragraph under "Education and Training" does not contain a single citation. The "Method of Assessment" section also does not contain a reference. In addition to the lack of citations, some references are not reliable sources. The reference (number 36) supporting the claim that SLPs work with children with language delays under "Clients and Patients- Children and Adults" is a website for a clinic that provides speech and language services. This is not a reliable source of information and the reference should come from a peer-reviewed journal article, government report, or another objective piece of work. Similar issues of reliability are seen with reference 32.

There is a potential bias in the article of choosing private SLP services over school SLP services in the "Methods of Assessment" section. The bias appears as the pros and cons of school-based SLP services are discussed but only the advantages of retaining private SLP services. This bias could be mitigated by also adding in the potential problems associated with taking your child to see a private SLP such as providing information as to the cost per hour on average for private SLP services. The adult population is also under-represented in this section and no mention is made as to where adults can obtain services.

Although this article begins to provide an overview of SLP as a profession the education and training section seems to take up a large proportion of the article and could be balanced by adding more information as to what the profession is about, why it is helpful, who can benefit, and how SLP services help individuals. Mel-SLP (talk) 01:22, 21 September 2016 (UTC)


 * added reference to salary information Mel-SLP (talk) 23:02, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Research Section; Salary Section
I noticed that there are no sources for the statement in the Research section of this article so it seems as though this claim is more opinion. Maybe check out the ASHA or SAC website for more ideas of cited sources for this section.

Another question I had was regarding the salary section; it seems that other countries are not represented (e.g. Canada, European countries, etc.) - this info may help a broader audience in learning about the profession. Nancy Zee (talk) 17:38, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * ASHA is now cited as source (looks like Mel-SLP(?) added it the day after you requested it) and I added US News as another source for salary information. ₪Rick n Asia₪ 07:26, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Someone added Australia salary info as well. ₪Rick n Asia₪ 07:27, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Possible additions/changes
Hello - I have reviewed the article and noticed some potential clarifications that may need to be addressed, missing citations and the possibility of updating sections to include current information. 1) In the lead off paragraph, it mentions that S-LP's evaluate, diagnose and treat a variety of disorders in many domains including cognition. It may be important to specify cognitive-communication instead of just pure cognition as this is more in the scope of practice of a psychologist. 2) There is no reference provided in the first paragraph of the multi-disciplinary section and it may be useful to provide one. 3) It may be helpful to provide updated salaries of S-LP's who are working in health care as data has now been released for 2015. Additionally a school survey has been conducted by ASHA in 2016, it may be useful to update these numbers. The information can be found at http://www.asha.org/uploadedFiles/2015-SLP-Health-Care-Survey-Annual-Salaries.pdf and http://www.asha.org/uploadedFiles/2016-Schools-Survey-SLP-Salaries-Wages.pdf VoiceDisordersKristine (talk) 14:51, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Salary Information
In the 'salary section' the following sentence is written "salaries can range from $40,000–90,000". However no citation is provided for where this information comes from and it may be best to find a corresponding citation to add in or perhaps it should be removed entirely for the time being. VoiceDisordersKristine (talk) 17:59, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I changed the numbers to an article I was able to find in US News. I added it as reference. ₪Rick n Asia₪ 07:27, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Suggestions
After reading this article, I have the following suggestions. 1) When describing what an S-LP specializes in the first paragraph of the article, it is important to mention social communication disorders. There also should be a citation at the end of this sentence. The citation could be taken from: 2) When discussing the common misconception about S-LPs it is important to say what source you found it from. Who had this misconception? It is important to add a citation in order to avoid that statement reflecting from personal experience. 3) Under the heading "Education and Training", I think it is important to clarify the last bullet point under licensure and certification. 4) The components of language and speech are outlined in the first and second section ("The profession"). It fits well in the second section. 5) The first section should have a heading title. For example, "Overview". JessicaVoiceDisorders (talk) 19:43, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Queries
As a Canadian S-LP student, I noticed that much of the information in this article regarding S-LPs' salaries, clinical hours requirements, etc. pertained to those working in the U.S. only. Would anyone be able to speak to these aspects of the profession in Canada? As well, are there any sources that could provide support for the statement that "SLPs conduct research..."? — Lavinia Patrick (talk) 21:06, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Clients and Patients
This section lacks uniform structure across the listed age groups. The section on children and adolescents lists disorders, rather than describing clients, and doesn't really clarify what is being listed for people who may not be familiar with the disorders. Additionally, dividing the section into Children, Children and Adults, and Adults only sort of encompasses the reality of the types of clients that may have different disorders. I think it would be clearer to divide types of clients into areas of practice (e.g. developmental disorders, vs acquired disorders or similar). While it is most common to see a children with developmental language difficulties (e.g. Down's Syndrome) as children, they often continue to require services into adulthood, and may receive them, depending on accessibility. The section could begin with "Speech-Language Pathologists work with a wide variety of clients with difficulties in communication and swallowing. These difficulties may be developmental or acquired through a disease, accident, surgery, or other event throughout the life span."

Additionally, information about service delivery models should be it's own section, and discuss different types of services (group therapy, individual therapy, prevention programs, screenings etc), as well as how these services are provided in different countries (private vs public, funding etc). Nishi790 (talk) 18:52, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Create a separate section for scope of practice
The introduction section attempts to cover the scope of practice of an SLP, which is very broad. It would be much more clear to add this as a separate section, after the introduction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.241.89.253 (talk) 17:47, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Logopedist
The word ‘logopedist’ redirects here, but the term isn't explained in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.61.180.106 (talk) 19:21, 29 November 2021 (UTC)