Speech Therapist Career Guide

Speech therapy is an exciting and varied career as it offers you the chance to conduct life-changing treatment that really makes a difference and improves the lives of the people you work with.

As a speech therapist, you will help adults and children with learning difficulties to communicate better with others. You will also help patients to overcome their stammering and help adults with speech difficulties that can occur as a result of injury to the head, neck or throat. Speech therapists can work in a variety of settings, including hospitals, schools, prisons, secure units, care homes and nursery and they tend to work closely with other health professionals, such as doctors, nurses and psychologists.

To become a speech therapist, you will normally have to complete a bachelor?s degree program. Some roles will also require you to complete a masters degree which has been accredited by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. This educational commitment, plus a lot of repetitive and mundane work at the beginning of a speech therapy career are the only few real negatives of becoming a speech therapist.

The positives very much outweigh the negatives for a career in speech therapy. Firstly, it is a very well respected, well paid and sought-after profession; and with this comes a very high sense of job security. Working as a speech therapist also offers a lot of job flexibility as you can work full time or part time, with kids or adults or in schools or hospitals. On top of all this, a career as a speech therapist has the fun factor ? everyday, you get to work with different people to help them improve their lives, this makes the career so rewarding.

Successful speech therapists are excellent listeners, have strong communication skills, are empathetic, self-motivated, driven and action oriented. If you have a these qualities, and the genuine desire to help people to improve their lives, then look no further!