What does a speech therapy assistant do?
Speech Therapy Assistants are responsible for providing administrative and operational support to speech therapists in aiding patients with conditions affecting communication, feeding, and swallowing. Their duties include collecting patient communication information, assist in implementing evidence-based intervention programs, identify staff training needs, and gathering information from observations and sessions. They maintain accurate work activity notes, answer phone calls, respond to emails, and manage supplies procurement. Speech Therapist Assistants also assist in developing communication strategies.
Speech therapy assistant responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real speech therapy assistant resumes:
- Assist licensed SLP in managing a speech caseload on several charter school campuses.
- Help students to achieve goals gear toward behavior, ADL, and safety skills.
- Provide therapeutic and behavior- orient teaching and clinical treatment programs for children and adolescents with autism or pervasive developmental disorder
- Collaborate with the interdisciplinary team (IDT).
- Maintain a strong sense of compassion and demonstrate excellent customer service skills.
- Attend CSE and CPSE meetings for discussions of students and their need for services.
- Administer exercises, stretching, mobilizing, ROM, transferring, gait and ambulation.
- Serve as a member of the IDT team and report on client's progression/regression of training objectives.
- Expedite patient rehabilitation and reduce hospital stays significantly.
- Support therapists by assisting in patient transfers and rehabilitation activities.
- Provide verbal behavior center-base services to children with development delays and autism spectrum disorders through individualize programs.
- Maintain organized documentation and patient files -earn repeated commendations from supervisor and patients for providing high-quality, compassionate care.
- Conduct individual therapy with patients while creating a positive environment that facilitate in the learning of fundamental chiropractic concepts.
- Train in prevention and management of aggressive behavior (PMAB).
- Assist in controlling maladaptivebehaviors by speaking calmly with clients or using restaint techniques (PMAB) or restraint devices
Speech therapy assistant skills and personality traits
We calculated that 26% of Speech Therapy Assistants are proficient in Patients, Speech-Language Pathologist, and Autism. They’re also known for soft skills such as Physical strength, Interpersonal skills, and Detail oriented.
We break down the percentage of Speech Therapy Assistants that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Patients, 26%
Conducted individual therapy with patients while creating a positive environment that facilitated in the learning of fundamental chiropractic concepts.
- Speech-Language Pathologist, 10%
Conducted speech-language screening (without interpretation) following specified screening protocols developed by the supervision speech-language pathologist.
- Autism, 10%
Provide verbal behavior center-based services to children with development delays and autism spectrum disorders through individualized programs.
- Patient Care, 6%
Maintain knowledge of all Medical Center services to facilitate optimal level of direct patient care and interdisciplinary team management.
- ABA, 5%
Assisted autistic students using the ABA System and following IEP's.
- Applied Behavior Analysis, 5%
Earned Applied Behavior Analysis Certificate.
Common skills that a speech therapy assistant uses to do their job include "patients," "speech-language pathologist," and "autism." You can find details on the most important speech therapy assistant responsibilities below.
Physical strength. The most essential soft skill for a speech therapy assistant to carry out their responsibilities is physical strength. This skill is important for the role because "assistants and aides need to have a moderate degree of strength because of the physical exertion required to assist patients." Additionally, a speech therapy assistant resume shows how their duties depend on physical strength: "assist speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, and physical therapists. "
Interpersonal skills. Another essential skill to perform speech therapy assistant duties is interpersonal skills. Speech therapy assistants responsibilities require that "occupational therapy assistants and aides spend much of their time interacting with patients and therefore should be friendly and courteous." Speech therapy assistants also use interpersonal skills in their role according to a real resume snippet: "conducted psychoeducational workshops focused on stress and time management, interpersonal relationship issues, and mental health awareness. "
Detail oriented. Another skill that relates to the job responsibilities of speech therapy assistants is detail oriented. This skill is critical to many everyday speech therapy assistant duties, as "occupational therapy assistants and aides must quickly and accurately follow the instructions, both written and spoken, of an occupational therapist." This example from a resume shows how this skill is used: "maintained detailed and informal records of attendance, progress, and performance for supervising speech-language pathologist. "
Compassion. For certain speech therapy assistant responsibilities to be completed, the job requires competence in "compassion." The day-to-day duties of a speech therapy assistant rely on this skill, as "occupational therapy assistants and aides frequently work with patients who struggle with many of life’s basic activities." For example, this snippet was taken directly from a resume about how this skill applies to what speech therapy assistants do: "maintained a strong sense of compassion and demonstrated excellent customer service skills. "
The three companies that hire the most speech therapy assistants are:
- Wells Fargo8 speech therapy assistants jobs
- American Senior Benefits8 speech therapy assistants jobs
- RWJBarnabas Health7 speech therapy assistants jobs
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Compare different speech therapy assistants
Speech therapy assistant vs. Assistant speech-language pathologist
In a music therapy internship, an intern's duties primarily depend on the directives of a manager or supervising staff. Typically, they are responsible for gaining industry insights and practical experience while performing support tasks such as answering calls and correspondence, preparing and processing documents, conducting research and analysis, setting-up instruments and other devices, and running errands as needed. They may also assist and work with clients under the supervision of a therapist. Moreover, they must understand and adhere to the facility's policies and regulations, including its vision and mission.
While similarities exist, there are also some differences between speech therapy assistants and assistant speech-language pathologist. For instance, speech therapy assistant responsibilities require skills such as "patients," "speech-language pathologist," "patient care," and "aba." Whereas a assistant speech-language pathologist is skilled in "speech language pathology," "clinical services," "home health," and "medicare guidelines." This is part of what separates the two careers.
Assistant speech-language pathologists earn the highest salaries when working in the education industry, with an average yearly salary of $71,997. On the other hand, speech therapy assistants are paid more in the education industry with an average salary of $35,926.On average, assistant speech-language pathologists reach higher levels of education than speech therapy assistants. Assistant speech-language pathologists are 16.1% more likely to earn a Master's Degree and 0.8% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Speech therapy assistant vs. Speech pathology teacher
An assistant intern is responsible for facilitating administrative and clerical tasks as assigned by the management. Assistant interns' duties include keeping records of meetings, receiving calls and handling customer inquiries, assisting on writing reports and data entry processing, cooperating and providing support for business events, and adhering to company policies and regulatory procedures. Successful assistant interns must have excellent time-management, multi-tasking, and communication skills. They must be a team player and fast-learner to handle various tasks in the corporate industry.
In addition to the difference in salary, there are some other key differences worth noting. For example, speech therapy assistant responsibilities are more likely to require skills like "patients," "speech-language pathologist," "patient care," and "applied behavior analysis." Meanwhile, a speech pathology teacher has duties that require skills in areas such as "cse," "iep direct," "speech language pathology," and "education plan." These differences highlight just how different the day-to-day in each role looks.
In general, speech pathology teachers achieve higher levels of education than speech therapy assistants. They're 27.8% more likely to obtain a Master's Degree while being 0.8% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Speech therapy assistant vs. Music therapy internship
Some important key differences between the two careers include a few of the skills necessary to fulfill the responsibilities of each. Some examples from speech therapy assistant resumes include skills like "speech-language pathologist," "autism," "aba," and "applied behavior analysis," whereas a music therapy internship is more likely to list skills in "individual therapy sessions," "substance abuse," "traumatic brain injury," and "music therapy. "
Music therapy interns typically earn higher educational levels compared to speech therapy assistants. Specifically, they're 8.3% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 0.3% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Speech therapy assistant vs. Assistant
Updated January 8, 2025
