Definition: Speech-language therapists are educated to assess speech and language development and to treat speech and language, as well as swallowing disorders.

Speech-language therapists are also educated to assess and treat children with delayed or deviant language development, disfluencies (stuttering), articulation problems and auditory processing difficulties.

Who would benefit from speech therapy?
A speech-language therapist deals with the evaluation and treatment of patients with speech-, language and/or swallowing difficulties caused by one or more of the following:

• Stroke
• Closed head injury
• Neurological conditions, e.g. Parkinson’s disease
• Head and neck surgery
• Congenital defects
• Deviant or delayed speech and language development

In patients who have had a stroke or head injury, the speech-language therapist can help determine the nature of the person’s language, speech and/or swallowing impairment and assist with therapy for improvement of communicative and swallowing abilities.

The speech-language therapist is concerned with improvement of the following:

• Inhibition of primitive oral reflexes, e.g. biting, which can occur after a severe brain injury
• Optimisation of oral functions for speech and feeding by providing passive and active oral-facial exercises.
• Swallowing and feeding by providing exercises for the specific swallowing deficit and feeding therapy.
• The use of language for communication by facilitating improvement of receptive (comprehension) and expressive (speaking) language either verbally or by means of an assisting communicative device.
• The improvement of the use of language for higher cognitive skills, e.g. reasoning and problem solving.