Q: What does a pediatric speech-language pathologist do?
A: Pediatric speech language pathologists (SLP) cover a multitude of areas related to speech, language, and feeding. In addition, an SLP can practice in a variety of settings.
First, let's cover settings! The settings in which you are likely to see pediatric SLPs are schools, clinics, hospitals or individual private practice. Each setting holds different expectations and models of service.
In the school setting, SLPs are part of a team providing a range of educational services from early intervention (birth -three years), and preschool all the way through high school. Within the educational settings, an SLP may also address the areas of reading, writing, and learning strategies. In an outpatient clinic setting SLPs may work alone or be part of a team that provides interdisciplinary services including occupational therapy, physical therapy and in some, mental health services. Some outpatient clinic are independent and others may be connected to a pediatric medical clinic or a healthcare system. Lastly, you will see pediatric SLPs practicing in hospital settings providing acute rehabilitation following premature birth, and traumatic injury or illness that may impact a child's development.
In regards to what services a pediatric SLP provides, there are a multitude of skill involved in the development of speech, language and communication. There are also a multitude of diagnoses which present with varied profiles of language delay or disorder. Pediatric SLPs are educated and trained to assess, diagnose and treat across these areas. Some SLPs specialize in certain areas while others may provide service across the whole array of areas in their scope of practice. Below is a list of areas a pediatric SLP may address and a brief description of each:
⟦1⟧ Receptive language refers to a child's understanding of language. Expressive language refers to how your child uses words to express him/herself. ⟦2⟧ Articulation/speech refers to how a child produces the individual sounds of speech. ⟦3⟧ Voice refers to the quality, pitch, loudness, and resonance of a child's voice. ⟦4⟧ Fluency refers to continuity, smoothness, rate, and effort in a child's speech production. ⟦5⟧ Cognitive communication refers tot he facets of communication that are impacted by cognitive processes. These involve attention, memory, problem solving, interpreting sensory information, emotional regulation. and executive function. ⟦6⟧ Social communication (or pragmatic language) refers to the ways in which a child uses language to communicate with others in different social situations and with different people. ⟦7⟧ Feeding and swallowing refers to how a child is accepting and preparing food orally (feeding) and transporting food from the mouth to the stomach (swallowing). ⟦8⟧ AAC refers to augmentative and alternative communication that provides multiple ways a child could communicate to supplement or compensate (either temporarily or permanently) for the impairment and disability patterns of expressive communication disorders. These include a range from simple communication boards, picture exchange communication systems, and speech generating devices. ⟦9⟧ Auditory rehabilitation refers to a wide set of practices aimed at optimizing a child’s ability to participate in activities that have been limited as a result of hearing loss. ⟦10⟧ Auditory processing refers to what happens to language heard as it travels along the auditory nerve, through the brain stem, to the brain, and what the brain does with that auditory signal. While this is diagnosed by an audiologist, the SLP can be a crucial part of the treatment team.
Celebrating MAY - Better Speech and Hearing Month!!
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