Speech Therapy is a healthcare discipline that provides therapeutic interventions to improve communication and speech disorders, often working with individuals of all ages, including children and adults. Speech therapists specialise in the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of communication and swallowing difficulties in children and adults. Speech pathologists may work with the following etiologies and disorders:
- Neurological diseases (e.g. Cerebral Palsy, Multiple Sclerosis,Parkinson’s Disease, Motor Neurone Disease)
- Acquired brain injury (e.g. traumatic brain injury and stroke)
- Aphasia/dysphasia
- Cognitive/linguistic disorders
- Dysarthria
- Oral and verbal dyspraxia
- Trauma
- Oncology (head and neck cancer)
- Dementia
- Swallowing (dysphagia) and feeding disorders
- Developmental delay
- Speech difficulties
- Language difficulties
- Literacy difficulties
- Fluency disorders/stuttering
- Voice disorders (e.g. vocal fold nodules)
- Semantic-pragmatic disorder
- Autistic spectrum disorder
- Hearing impairment
- Cleft palate/lip
- Craniofacial syndromes and deformities
- Central auditory processing disorder
- Syndromes and other genetic conditions (e.g. Down Syndrome)