What does a speech therapist do?
Speech Therapists work with patients across multiple age groups to facilitate the treatment of speech and language disorders, such as stammers and stutters. They work with people who cannot produce speech sounds or cannot produce them clearly.
Speech therapist responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real speech therapist resumes:
- Conduct individual and group therapy with individuals diagnose with speech and language impairment, learning disabilities, and autism spectrum disorder.
- Conduct IEP meetings and provide documentation for Medicaid billing.
- Provide services to children with developmental delay and autism.
- Graduate student supervisor, and supervisor for CFY's.
- Work under the supervision of an ASHA's certify SLP.
- Instruct children in the proper use of assistive devices such as hearing aides.
- Train new CNAs in proper feeding techniques to minimize patient's risk for aspiration.
- Supervise several graduate student interns from local universities, clinical supervisor for one CFY employee.
- Work as the primary SLP involve in setting up and in subsequent development of the department.
- Attend care plan as well as discharge planning meetings, educate CNAs for rehab dining program.
- Participate in IFSP meetings and collaborate with other professionals involve with a particular case, to ensure ongoing progress.
- Bill medicaid services using HealthMaster computer program.
- Perform therapeutic skil speech intervention to promote restoration of patients goals and functional abilities to the fullest
- Instruct patients and their caregivers about techniques to eliminate/ decrease difficulties pertaining to communication and swallowing.
- Report on patient progress at inter-disciplinary meetings with the rehabilitation team and modify treatment goals accordingly.
Speech therapist skills and personality traits
We calculated that 29% of Speech Therapists are proficient in Patients, Home Health, and Rehabilitation. They’re also known for soft skills such as Analytical skills, Communication skills, and Compassion.
We break down the percentage of Speech Therapists that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Patients, 29%
Conducted Speech Therapy assessment of patients through medical examinations and screenings throughout several companies within the city of Barranquilla.
- Home Health, 25%
Provided speech services in a school setting twice per week while maintaining home health caseload three days per week.
- Rehabilitation, 8%
Reported on patient progress at inter-disciplinary meetings with the rehabilitation team and modified treatment goals accordingly.
- Acute Care, 7%
Served on a full-time basis as Speech Therapist in the Acute Care of one of the leading hospitals of Singapore.
- Asha, 5%
Trained and registered users of ASHA National Outcomes Measurement System (NOMS).
- Treatment Programs, 4%
Planned individually-designed treatment programs to restore, maintain and improve communication and cognition.
Common skills that a speech therapist uses to do their job include "patients," "home health," and "rehabilitation." You can find details on the most important speech therapist responsibilities below.
Analytical skills. One of the key soft skills for a speech therapist to have is analytical skills. You can see how this relates to what speech therapists do because "speech-language pathologists must select appropriate diagnostic tools and evaluate results to identify goals and develop a treatment plan." Additionally, a speech therapist resume shows how speech therapists use analytical skills: "write reports and maintain accurate, up-to-date data, such as client medicaid and caseload activities. "
Communication skills. Many speech therapist duties rely on communication skills. "speech-language pathologists need to explain test results, diagnoses, and proposed treatments in a way that individuals and their families can understand," so a speech therapist will need this skill often in their role. This resume example is just one of many ways speech therapist responsibilities rely on communication skills: "develop and implement strategies to meet the communication needs of pre-k students with a variety of handicapping conditions"
Compassion. This is an important skill for speech therapists to perform their duties. For an example of how speech therapist responsibilities depend on this skill, consider that "speech-language pathologists may work with people who are frustrated by their communication difficulties." This excerpt from a resume also shows how vital it is to everyday roles and responsibilities of a speech therapist: "earned repeated commendations from supervisor and patients for providing high-quality, compassionate care. ".
Detail oriented. For certain speech therapist responsibilities to be completed, the job requires competence in "detail oriented." The day-to-day duties of a speech therapist rely on this skill, as "speech-language pathologists must comprehensive notes on clients' progress to ensure that they continue receiving proper treatment." For example, this snippet was taken directly from a resume about how this skill applies to what speech therapists do: "provided detailed documentation of progress toward iep goals to certified speech therapist for medicaid billing. "
Listening skills. Another common skill required for speech therapist responsibilities is "listening skills." This skill comes up in the duties of speech therapists all the time, as "speech-language pathologists must pay attention to hear the clients' communication difficulties and determine a course of action." An excerpt from a real speech therapist resume shows how this skill is central to what a speech therapist does: "communicated diagnosis, plan of care and prognosis to patients, families and all treatment team members. "
The three companies that hire the most speech therapists are:
- FeldCare Connects418 speech therapists jobs
- Integrity Home Care + Hospice77 speech therapists jobs
- Interim HealthCare64 speech therapists jobs
Choose from 10+ customizable speech therapist resume templates
Build a professional speech therapist resume in minutes. Our AI resume writing assistant will guide you through every step of the process, and you can choose from 10+ resume templates to create your speech therapist resume.
Compare different speech therapists
Speech therapist vs. Graduate student clinician
Graduate student clinicians can be a nurse practitioner, pharmacist, or doctor whose primary job is to work with patients and assist patients in managing their medical condition or illness. They perform varied duties and responsibilities that include maintaining a good relationship with patients, discussing the treatment progress to patients, and documenting patients' medical history. Additionally, they are also responsible for assisting physicians on non-surgical procedures, updating the medical information of patients on charts, and giving diagnostic tests.
There are some key differences in the responsibilities of each position. For example, speech therapist responsibilities require skills like "home health," "rehabilitation," "asha," and "treatment programs." Meanwhile a typical graduate student clinician has skills in areas such as "motor speech disorders," "dysphagia," "traumatic brain injury," and "aphasia." This difference in skills reveals the differences in what each career does.
On average, graduate student clinicians reach lower levels of education than speech therapists. Graduate student clinicians are 12.3% less likely to earn a Master's Degree and 0.4% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Speech therapist vs. Student clinician
A Student Clinician is a healthcare practitioner who works as caregiver of a patient in a hospital or clinic. They integrate knowledge obtained in courses into the clinical practicum assignments.
Each career also uses different skills, according to real speech therapist resumes. While speech therapist responsibilities can utilize skills like "home health," "rehabilitation," "acute care," and "treatment programs," student clinicians use skills like "traumatic brain injury," "aphasia," "expressive language," and "individual therapy sessions."
Average education levels between the two professions vary. Student clinicians tend to reach lower levels of education than speech therapists. In fact, they're 16.1% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.4% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.What technology do you think will become more important and prevalent for speech therapists in the next 3-5 years?
Monica Sampson Ph.D.
Director of Health Care Services in Speech-Language Pathology, ASHA
- Telehealth platforms to enable access to patients who otherwise have limited access to timely and reliable SLP services
- Electronic documentation systems, especially ones that seamlessly integrate across providers in hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home health, and outpatient clinics. This minimizes gaps in communication among clinicians with easy transfer of records.
- Assistive technology to enhance to either provide or augment access to communication for children and adults who cannot communicate or have difficulty communicating verbally, including SGDs.
- Apps and digital material as assessment and treatment tools: With an increased focus on digital access to SLP services, the profession has a critical need for digital material for assessment and treatment of communication, cognition, and swallowing impairments across the lifespan.
- Use of artificial intelligence to bolster learning and enhance creativity in pedagogy.
The lack of access to technology by underrepresented populations will continue to be a pressing need post-COVID-19.
Speech therapist vs. Language pathologist
In a speech-language pathology internship, an intern's duties vary depending on a supervising pathologist or manager's directives. They typically gather industry insights and practical experience while performing support tasks such as answering calls and correspondence, preparing and processing documents, organizing files, maintaining records, assisting clients with filling up forms, and running errands as needed. They may also help pathologists in developing materials and strategies in adherence to the clients' needs. Moreover, as an intern, it is essential to understand and abide by the facility's rules and policies, including state laws and regulations.
The required skills of the two careers differ considerably. For example, speech therapists are more likely to have skills like "home health," "asha," "treatment programs," and "language disorders." But a language pathologist is more likely to have skills like "speech-language pathology," "dysphagia," "slp," and "traumatic brain injury."
Language pathologists typically earn higher educational levels compared to speech therapists. Specifically, they're 10.7% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 0.3% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Speech therapist vs. Speech-language pathology internship
Types of speech therapist
Updated January 8, 2025
