How To Become A Language Pathologist: What It Is and Career Path

What is a language pathologist and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

Dr. Elisabeth D'Angelo Ph.D., CCC-SLP, CBIS

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a language pathologist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $30.37 an hour? That's $63,169 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 21% and produce 34,000 job opportunities across the U.S.

What general advice would you give to a language pathologist?

Dr. Elisabeth D'Angelo Ph.D., CCC-SLP, CBIS

Associate Professor, California State University - Sacramento

Be open to trying all aspects of the field: medical, school, early intervention/home based care…. If you are not sure where you want to end up or focus on and cannot decide between medical or school, adults or children, make sure you get as many experiences as you can. Ask your Clinical Fellowship Year supervisor a lot of questions: you are still learning. You are not expected to know it all when you are done with your Master’s Degree. In fact, the most successful speech-language pathologists know that they will always continue to learn!

ScoreLanguage PathologistUS Average

Salary

4.9

Avg. Salary $63,169

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

5.5

Growth rate 21%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

4.9

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.36%

Asian 4.49%

Black or African American 4.85%

Hispanic or Latino 9.52%

Unknown 3.78%

White 77.01%

Gender

female 89.47%

male 10.53%

Age - 38

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 38

Stress level

5.5

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.7

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

8.1

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a language pathologist

Explore language pathologist education requirements

Most common language pathologist degrees

Bachelor's

55.1 %

Master's

41.5 %

Associate

1.8 %

Start to develop specific language pathologist skills

Skills	Percentages
Speech-Language Pathology	18.19%
Patients	11.55%
Autism	7.85%
Dysphagia	7.83%
Rehabilitation	5.22%

Complete relevant language pathologist training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New language pathologists learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a language pathologist based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real language pathologist resumes.

Research language pathologist duties and responsibilities

Manage all relate paperwork including lesson planning for SLP-assistants and Medicaid reimbursement.
Provide evaluation and remediation of various forms of communication disorders for preschool and school-age population in an outpatient rehabilitation clinic.
Assess appropriate AAC device for student use, and program device for each student's specific needs.
Apply behavior analysis and discrete trial training are used to train the children on the AAC devices.

Prepare your language pathologist resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your language pathologist resume.

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