Employment Settings
Audiologists and speech-language pathologists work in a variety of settings. To learn more about specific employment settings, select from the list below.
Schools
As a speech-language pathologist employed in the schools, you may:
- Provide individual and small group services to infants, toddlers, preschoolers, school-age children, and adolescents
- Teach full-time in a special education classroom setting with students who have speech-language disorders
- Work with children with a wide range of disabilities, from mild and moderate to severe and/or multiple disorders
- Teach listening, speaking, reading, writing and learning strategies in a regular classroom
- Collaborate with other professionals and parents to facilitate a students' academic and social skills in an educational environment
- Provide speech-language services to a number of schools on an itinerant basis
- Conduct screenings and diagnostic evaluations
- Write reports and participate in annual review conferences
- Serve on program planning and teacher assistance teams
- Develop Individualized Education Plans (IEP) and Individualized Family Service Plans (IFSPs)
- Serve as a consultant to families and other educators
- Provide training to teachers and family members to enhance children's communication skills
Audiologists working in the schools may:
- Identify children with hearing loss
- Provide habilitation activities, auditory training, or speech reading
- Create and administer programs for the prevention of hearing loss
- Advocate for good classroom acoustics so that accurate listening is accessible
- Develop and supervise a hearing screening program for preschool and school-age children
- Identify and evaluate children with hearing loss and assess central auditory function
- Make recommendations and ensure proper fit and functioning of hearing aids, cochlear implants, group and classroom amplification, classroom acoustics and assistive and alerting devices
- Provide services in the areas of speechreading, listening, communication strategies, use and care of amplification, including cochlear implants, and self-management of hearing needs
- Serve as a member of the educational team in the evaluation, planning, and placement process for students with hearing loss or other auditory disorders
- Provide in-service training on hearing and hearing loss and their implications for school personnel, children, and parents
- Educate parents, children, and school personnel about hearing loss prevention and classroom acoustics
- Collaborate with the school, parents, teachers, special support personnel, and relevant community agencies and professionals to ensure delivery of appropriate services
Hospitals
Acute care, rehabilitation, and psychiatric hospitals may offer audiology, speech, and language services on an in/out patient basis. Hospitals may provide services for patients of all ages, and some, such as children's hospitals or hospitals for military or veteran personnel, may house specialized populations.
As a speech-language pathologist , you may:
- Diagnose and treat a wide range of communication disorders
- Diagnose and treat swallowing problems
- Function as part of a multidisciplinary treatment team
- Provide counseling to patients and their families
- Educate other health care staff about communication and swallowing disorders
As an audiologist , you may:
- Measure hearing ability of individuals of all ages, including infants
- Administer and interpret screening, assessment, and diagnostic procedures, such as air conduction, bone conduction, speech eudiometry, acoustic immittance (impedance) tests, evoked potential tests, and electronystagmography
- Identify the presence and severity of hearing loss
- Provide aural rehabilitation counseling about handling communication situations at home, work, and school to reduce the effects of hearing loss
- Assess the benefit of amplification devices, such as hearing aids
- Instruct in the use of hearing aids or other assistive listening devices in a variety of contexts
- Instruct in the care and maintenance of amplification and other assistive devices
- Design rehabilitation programs to help persons learn to identify sound heard
- Conduct Auditory Brainstem Response/Evoked Potentials
- Collaborate with teams of professionals, individuals, and families of caregivers on strategies to meet the communication needs of children or adults with hearing loss
Public Health Departments
Speech, language, and audiology services vary depending on the state. Some states offer no services. In general, speech-language pathologists and audiologists provide consultative services to various agencies, contractual service, or direct services to patients.
Research Agencies
Audiologists, speech-language pathologists, and speech/language/hearing scientists interested primarily in research may work at a number of institutes and laboratories, such as the National Institutes of Health and the Bell Laboratories.
Uniformed Services
Because audiology and speech-language pathology are health careers, clinicians and scientists are employed in the federal uniformed services (U.S. Air Force, Army, Navy and the Public Health Service). Find out more about uniformed services positions.
Special Schools
Developmental Learning Center/Day Care and Treatment Centers
Developmental Learning Centers are usually state-funded facilities that offer infant and preschool programs for children with disabilities. Day care centers sometimes hire audiologists and speech-language pathologists to provide screening, diagnosis, and treatment, when needed.
State Schools and Intermediate Facilities for Children with Mental Retardation
These facilities usually hire audiologists and speech-language pathologist for diagnosis and treatment, when needed.
Private and Group Practice
An audiologist and/or speech-language pathologist singly or in affiliation with one or more individuals has total ethical, professional and administrative control of the practice; has total financial, legal responsibility and liability for the practice and is self-employed.
Colleges and Universities
Opportunities exist for teaching, research, and clinical supervision. These institutions may also allow you to work with a variety of clients/patients in the university core clinical facility and /or their affiliated health care facility.
Industrial Audiology
Audiologists working in the area of industrial audiology plan and execute a program of hearing conservation for workers.
Health Care
Outpatient Clinics
Audiologists and speech-language pathologists may provide services to adults and children in free-standing or hospital-based outpatient clinics. They may also be employed by physicians and provide services from the physician's office.
Additional Health Care Settings
Speech-language pathologists may also be employed by or contract with nursing homes or assisted living facilities, day treatment centers, or home health agencies. Audiologists may serve as consultants to provide services in these settings.
Corporate Speech-Language Pathology
Corporate Speech-Language Pathology involves providing services to a company, or its customers, as a consultant. In that position, you offer assessment and training in many aspects of communication, such as articulation, fluency, voice, language and hearing education, as well as other services uniquely needed by the business world. These include presentation skills, foreign and regional accent modification, professional diction and grammar, interviewing skills, business writing and business communication etiquette. You may even help customers communicate more effectively with their customers by training customer representatives to work with their clients with hearing loss.
For more information visit Speech-LanguagePathologist.org, the Corporate Speech Pathology Network or read the article "Corporate Speech-Language Pathology: Is It Right For You?" The ASHA Leader, vol. 11 No. 1, pages 14-15, 24-25. Copyright by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Used with permission.
Adapted from an article by Katie Schwartz, "SLPs and the World of Work: Corporate Speech-Language Pathology," The ASHA Leader, vol. 8 No. 12, pages 4-5, 24. Copyright by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Used with permission.