What does a speech therapist do? How we help babies to grandparents...and everyone in between!

When I tell people what I do for work, I almost always get the same response:

“So, you teach kids how to talk? Cool!”

While I agree that my job is cool, I wish people knew that I do SO much more than that! No, I don’t just sit in a room and teach kids how to say their “s” all day. You may be wondering, “So what do speech therapists ACTUALLY do?”

Don’t worry, you’re in the right place! Speech therapists help people from birth to death with lots of necessary skills to survive. Helping children talk is just the start!

How We Help Babies

Believe it or not, speech therapists can start helping people as soon as they're born!

“But newborn babies don’t talk! Why would they need a speech therapist?!”

Have you ever heard of a baby who had difficulty eating or swallowing? They most likely saw a speech therapist to help them! That’s because the muscles and parts of your body that you use for talking, are typically the same ones you use to eat and swallow.

Babies born early or with certain medical conditions often have difficulty learning how to eat. Whether breastfeeding or from a bottle, babies have to master the “suck-swallow-breath” pattern to eat safely and efficiently. Speech therapists are experts in the muscles and structures that control this pattern and know specific therapy strategies to help infants learn to eat safely.

Have you ever heard of the phrase, “A fed baby is a happy baby” ? Well, it’s true! And speech therapists help make that happen!

How We Help Children

Speech therapists work in many different places, and one of those places is schools. That’s because school-aged children can have a variety of speech and language difficulties that may impact their learning.

Yes, we do help children say certain sounds correctly, but we also help kids with their language development. This includes a child’s expressive and receptive language skills.

Expressive language skills involve a child’s vocabulary, sentence structure, and grammar. Have you ever wondered how a kid goes from saying this:

“ Bye-bye ma-ma!”

to this:

“It was great seeing you mom, looking forward to getting lunch with you next week!”

We learn SO many different words and language rules that help us form more complex sentences as we get older. That’s all part of our expressive language development. If a child gets stuck at a certain stage, speech therapists are there to help them catch up!

Receptive language skills involve how a child understands language, like their ability to follow directions and comprehend a story.

Imagine you are at work, and your boss says: “Would you mind grabbing the copies from the printer and then asking Mark when he’ll be finished with that report?”

You say, “sure thing!” but then…

Your mind goes empty! What did they want you to do again? Who were you supposed to talk to?

As children grow, their brains get better at remembering information and following directions. Speech therapists can help kids learn strategies to improve their comprehension and memory, so that they can remember increasingly difficult directions. A pretty important life skill, don’t you think?

As children get older, they are expected to use many different language skills to communicate. Speech therapists help ensure kids learn and master these concepts, so they can communicate independently into adulthood.

How We Help Adults

At this point, you might be thinking:

“Woah, I didn’t know speech therapists did this much! They can help adults too?!”

I know, I know, we may seem like superheroes. But we are trained to help adults in their communication and swallowing too!

In the medical field, speech therapists are crucial in helping individuals recover from certain medical events, such as strokes or TBIs (traumatic brain injuries).

Have you ever wondered how our muscles and body parts just magically know how to talk and eat without us having to think about it?

We have our brains to thank for that!

Our brains send tons of messages to our mouth, throat, and lungs to get them to work together correctly.

But what if our brain gets hurt?

If our brain gets injured, through a stroke or other traumatic injury, our bodies may have difficulty remembering how to talk, chew, and swallow. Speech therapists help individuals recover from these events by retraining our brains to send all those messages accurately, so we can talk and eat independently.

See? I told you we’re superheroes!

Speech Therapists Help Everyone!

If you’ve read this far, you now know how big of a role speech therapists play in helping people at any age. Believe it or not, we’ve just scratched the surface of all the amazing ways we help people.

Did you know we even help actors and singers too?!

Talking and eating are two of the most important skills that contribute to our physical and social well-being. Most of the time, we take for granted how our bodies can eat and talk without us having to think about it. But when those body parts stop working, it can impact our lives significantly.

Speech therapists help babies, children, and adults thrive in their communication and eating skills so that everyone can be happy and healthy!

The next time you meet a speech therapist, what areas of speech therapy will you ask about? Let us know in the comments below!