What is speech and language therapy?

What do speech and language therapists do?

Speech and language therapists provide treatment, support and care for people of all ages who have difficulties with speech, language, communication, eating, drinking and swallowing. Using specialist skills, they work directly with clients and their carers to assess, treat and provide tailored support.

They also work closely with teachers and other health professionals, such as doctors, nurses, other allied health professionals and psychologists to develop individual treatment programmes.

If you’d like to know more about starting a career in speech and language therapy, visit our section on becoming a speech and language therapist.

Who do speech and language therapists work with?

Speech and language therapists work with people of all ages with a range of communication, eating or swallowing difficulties. They work with people at different stages of their lives, for multiple reasons depending on their needs. Some people may need speech and language therapy support at multiple stages of their lives for different, sometimes unrelated reasons

Babies and young children

SLTs work with babies with feeding and swallowing difficulties. This can be in neonatal care settings, or as part of other health and support services. They’ll work with families to support and babies who are either at risk of struggling or who are already struggling with:

• feeding
• swallowing
• and communication (including language development)

so that they can receive appropriate treatments and support.

Children

SLTs working with children will support them with a range of conditions related to communication, speech, eating, drinking and swallowing difficulties.

These conditions can vary widely and occur in combinations. Some examples of conditions or difficulties include:

• cleft palates
• language difficulties
• learning difficulties
• Physical disabilities
• selective mutism
• specific difficulties in producing sounds

Adults

SLTs can help adults who have communication or eating and swallowing problems, including those that are a result of neurological impairments and degenerative conditions.  For example, people who are living with one or more of the following conditions may receive speech support

• Stroke
• Brain injury
• Parkinson’s disease
• Dementia
• Head and neck cancer
• Deafness
• Learning disabilities
• Long Covid
• Mental health (adults)
• Physical disabilities
• Stammering
• Voice

Visit our clinical information A to Z for information on specific conditions or situations where speech and language therapy could provide support.

If you’d like to find out how to access speech and language therapy, see How to find a speech and language therapist

Where do speech and language therapists work?

SLTs work in all kinds of settings including:

• hospitals (in emergency care, acute care and outpatients)
• education (i.e. Schools, Nurseries etc)
• justice (i.e. Prisons and Secure units)
• children’s services (i.e. Child development centres)
• care homes
• in their own speech and language therapy business
• day centres for people with learning disabilities
• community clinics
• client’s homes

Speech and language therapists in the UK work for the NHS or as an independent/private speech and language therapist. They can work as sole practitioners, in multi-disciplinary teams (where they may be the only SLT), or as part of an SLT team.

Working as part of the NHS

SLTs within the NHS are found in all settings, from acute adult wards to providing services to children within local schools, from general services to highly specialist settings. Information about pay scales can be found on the NHS careers website

Research in Speech and language therapy

Speech and language therapy is a research-active profession, with SLTs taking an evidence-based approach to practice.

Many SLTs may choose to undertake research as part of their career, for example by studying for a master’s or PhD, or they may use their clinical work to investigate research questions by collecting data on patient/client outcomes following a particular intervention.

Research evidence is taken into consideration by a SLT, alongside a patient’s/client’s, or family member’s preferences for their care and appraised in light of a SLT’s clinical expertise to deliver meaningful and effective speech and language therapy – this is the basis of evidence-based practice (or EBP).

How the RCSLT supports research

The RCSLT helps SLTs to access and understand the latest and best evidence about ways of working with people with speech, language, communication and swallowing difficulties. For example, six times a year our journal, the International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders publishes the latest research undertaken in these areas.

We are carrying out a research priority setting project to identify the top most important areas that require further research in speech and language therapy as agreed upon by a range of stakeholders, including people with speech, language, communication and swallowing difficulties.

You can view our research priorities for dysphagia, learning disabilities and developmental language disorders.

Speech and language therapy support workers

The speech and language therapy support workforce is an integral part of speech and language therapy services. Currently, there is no set academic requirement in order to become a support worker, instead there will be local requirements for these roles.

The best way to find support worker/assistant roles within the NHS is to check the NHS jobs website or to approach services directly to enquire about vacancies.

Visit our support workers hub to learn more about the role, what it does and how you can become a support worker.