Speech and language therapists work with adults in a range of specialist areas including stroke and neurology rehabilitation, patient who have cancer, or medical or spinal injury patients.
Speech and language therapists who work with children can improve the children’s communication skills to help them develop and participate in activities. This empowers our children and young adults to communicate more effectively.
Libby, paediatric speech and language therapist
Why did you want to be a paediatric SLT?
I was someone who was quite unsure of which path I wanted to take after leaving school, but I always knew I wanted to work in a profession that involved helping others and working with children specifically.
After a chance find I found a speech and language therapy university course online. I completed some shadowing experience and decided to give the course a go.
I’m now four years into my career as a qualified speech and language therapist and have never looked back.
Day to day tasks?
My day-to-day job involves completing initial and review assessments with children and their families out in the community.
We complete our appointments as home visits, nursery visits or school visits depending on the child’s age and setting. This allows us to liaise not only with the families directly, but with the other key members of that child’s life such as nursery or teaching staff.
After appointments are finished for the day, it’s back to the office to score up assessments and write up the notes onto each child’s record. Depending on the day, there is often time to complete other administrative jobs such as returning phone calls we may have missed or completing the feed-back reports from our appointments.
Most fulfilling part of the job?
I would say just working with the children is the best part – even if you're having a bad day yourself, you can always count on a cheeky four-year-old to put a smile on your face. I would say it's also seeing and monitoring the progress each child makes – no matter how long this may take for some – and the positive effect this has not only on them but also their families too.
Karen, adult speech and language therapist
Why did you want to be an adult SLT?
I’ve always been interested in how we communicate, and speech and language therapy brings together several areas I enjoy such as, science, languages, linguistics and medicine.
Speech and language therapy also offers a wealth of specialties to work in, across a number of clinical areas.
Since becoming a speech and language therapist, I have become more interested in the management of swallowing disorders (a part of the job that is often not know to the general public but makes up a large part of our work).
Day to day tasks?
Assessing and managing patients’ communication and swallowing needs on the hospital wards, in outpatient clinics and in the community (in their own home and care home settings).
Offering support to patients (and their families/carers) to aid them in understanding the changes to their communication and swallowing and how we can work together jointly towards goals that are important to them.
Being involved in multidisciplinary meetings and working as part of a team as well as writing reports. These reports are to various other health professionals about the outcomes of a patient’s assessment or treatment.
Offering advice on communication aids, both paper based and electronic. Also offering education and training to other health professionals to improve their knowledge and skills in working with people with communication and swallowing difficulties.
Most fulfilling part of the job?
Building valued relationships with patients and their families, often over a number of years, and supporting them through changes to their swallowing and communication.
Speech and language therapist video
Where can I study to be a speech and language therapist?
Work experience
Work experience – South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Contact us
- Careers at South Tees: [email protected]
- Work experience at South Tees: [email protected]