Example - American Speech-Language-Hearing Association: Fill & Download for Free

It's a profession where you can have a lot of flexibility and variety if you want. In most SLP jobs, you will spend about 80% of your time in face-to-face interactions with your clients and the rest of your time doing paperwork. The face-to-face time is usually a combination of evaluation and treatment. This can be pretty rewarding, because you know that the work you're doing makes someone's life better.Client Populations. As a speech-language pathologist, you can work with any kind of population you like. I've worked with people of all ages, from infants and toddlers to elderly people in their 90s, and all ages in between. The types of speech and language disorders that your clients have can also vary quite a bit. Here's a list that is probably incomplete:delay in early speech and language developmentarticulation and phonological disordersapraxia of speechstutteringexpressive language impairmentsreceptive language impairmentscleft lip and palatedysarthriaaphasiadysphagiafeeding disordersYour clients might or might not have other issues in addition to their speech and language problems. Here are some examples:autism spectrum disordersDown Syndromecerebral palsytraumatic brain injurystrokecleft lip and palateWork Environments. There is also a lot of variety in the types of work environments for an SLP. You could have a job where you to go one building, such as a school, hospital, nursing home, or clinic, and stay there all day. You could have a job where you work out of an office but spend a good chunk of your time seeing clients at other locations. You could see clients in their homes and spend your entire day going from one home to another, without even having your own office. You could work online from home and see your clients via telepractice.Types of Employment. You can be a full-time or part-time employee who works directly for the facility where you work, or you could work for a contract company. You can start your own private practice and be self-employed.Coworkers. In most work settings, the SLP is part of a team of professionals. These other professionals can include occupational therapists, physical therapists, nurses, social workers, psychologists, dietitians, special education teachers, and regular education teachers. I have really liked most of my coworkers over the years.For more information about how to become a speech-language pathologist, read the answers to these questions:What educational preparation is required to be a speech therapist?How do you become a speech pathologist?And here's the link to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) , our national association.

This can vary by dialect.I grew up in Michigan, where “bowl” and “bull” clearly sound different. But then I moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania about 15 years ago, and they sound pretty much the same here. I have to rely on context to know which word was said. I also can’t hear a difference in “pull,” “poll/pole”, and “pool.” Those all sound the same to me when Pittsburghers say them, and I think they sound the same to locals as well, because I’ve seen people write “poll” when it should have been “pool.”Before I was familiar with the local dialect, I did try to work on final /l/ sounds in speech therapy with some kids. It was a parent of one of my clients who first alerted me to the problem. I had sent home a list of words with /l/ on the end for him to practice. She came back the next week and said that she couldn’t work on those with him, because she couldn’t even pronounce them herself. And she was right.After that, I didn’t work on final /l/ with any kid here in Pittsburgh.Edited to add:The OP states that their sister was forced to go to speech therapy because of her bowl/bull merger. Here’s a comment https://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-difference-in-the-pronunciation-of-bowl-and-bull-My-sister-was-forced-to-go-to-a-speech-class-for-pronouncing-them-the-same-way-in-elementary-school-but-Ive-never-heard-a-difference/answer/Brian-Collins-56/comment/42133490 I wrote about that on another answer to this question.We don’t know if there were any other errors in this child’s speech, or what the parents thought of it. Just because the OP only mentioned bull/bowl doesn’t mean that that was the only reason the sister was in speech.I’ve never worked anywhere, in the past 20 years, where I could “force” a child to attend speech therapy without their parent’s permission.A few years ago, a classroom teacher referred a student to me for difficulty with r. Turns out that her dad was from some other English-speaking country and had a nonrhotic dialect. The student was able to say words like “red” just fine. So I did not recommend speech therapy for her, and I wrote up something for her file so she would not be referred again by another teacher. But even if I had wanted to put her in therapy, her parents could have and would have stopped me.So I’m thinking that if the OP’s sister was in speech therapy, their parents must have agreed to it.Here’s an excerpt from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s official position on Social Dialects (emphasis mine):It is the position of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) that no dialectal variety of English is a disorder or a pathological form of speech or language. Each social dialect is adequate as a functional and effective variety of English. Each serves a communication function as well as a social solidarity function. It maintains the communication network and the social construct of the community of speakers who use it. Furthermore, each is a symbolic representation of the historical, social, and cultural background of the speakers. For example, there is strong evidence that many of the features of Black English represent linguistic Africanisms.However, society has adopted the linguistic idealization model that standard English is the linguistic archetype. Standard English is the linguistic variety used by government, the mass media, business, education, science, and the arts. Therefore, there may be nonstandard English speakers who find it advantageous to have access to the use of standard English.The traditional role of the speech-language pathologist has been to provide clinical services to the communicatively handicapped. It is indeed possible for dialect speakers to have linguistic disorders within the dialect. An essential step toward making accurate assessments of communicative disorders is to distinguish between those aspects of linguistic variation that represent the diversity of the English language from those that represent speech, language, and hearing disorders. The speech-language pathologist must have certain competencies to distinguish between dialectal differences and communicative disorders. These competencies include knowledge of the particular dialect as a rule-governed linguistic system, knowledge of the phonological and grammatical features of the dialect, and knowledge of nondiscriminatory testing procedures. Once the difference/disorder distinctions have been made, it is the role of the speech-language pathologist to treat only those features or characteristics that are true errors and not attributable to the dialect.Aside from the traditionally recognized role, the speech-language pathologist may also be available to provide elective clinical services to nonstandard English speakers who do not present a disorder. The role of the speech-language pathologist for these individuals is to provide the desired competency in standard English without jeopardizing the integrity of the individual's first dialect. The approach must be functional and based on context-specific appropriateness of the given dialect.Provision of elective services to nonstandard English speakers requires sensitivity and competency in at least three areas: linguistic features of the dialect, linguistic contrastive analysis procedures, and the effects of attitudes toward dialects. It is prerequisite for the speech-language pathologist to have a thorough understanding and appreciation for the community and culture of the nonstandard English speaker. Further, it is a requirement that the speech-language pathologist have thorough knowledge of the linguistic rules of the particular dialect.It remains the priority of the speech-language pathologist to continue to serve the truly communicatively handicapped. However, for nonstandard English speakers who seek elective clinical services, the speech-language pathologist may be available to provide such services. The speech-language pathologist may also serve in a consultative role to assist educators in utilizing the features of the nonstandard dialect to facilitate the learning of reading and writing in standard English. Just as competencies are assumed and necessary in the treatment of communicative disorders, competencies are also necessary in the provision of elective clinical services to nonstandard English speakers.

Look for contact information on- line for a professional close to where you live. Surprisingly most professionals are open to discussing their jobs and advising potential students about selecting their profession. You could also try contacting the office of the professional association for a suitable professional willing to talk about their career. For example, most speech pathologists belong to the American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA) ASHA also provides certification for speech language pathologists.