49 Reasons For Speech Therapy

I didn’t know, until my son needed speech therapy, that a speech therapist has to have a master’s degree and a state certification. Just last year, the rigorous 2020 Standards and Implementation Procedures for the Certificate of Clinical Competence were implemented. These eight steps required to maintain certification include 36 graduate semester hours, a minimum of 400 hours of supervised clinical experience, and a variety of experience in different work settings and with different populations. This is serious stuff! I then got interested in all the reasons a person may need speech therapy. I was expecting there to be 10 but I quickly found 50, and there are certainly more. Speech therapists are amazing in their ability to treat both children and adults for such a wide range of challenges. If this is a field that interests you, visit the American-Speech-Language-Hearing Association for more information. 

Note:  Although the Orange Effect Foundation does not provide grants to adults, many of the disorders that affect adults are included in this list.

1. Expressive Language Disorder
2. Receptive Language Disorders
3. Mixed Receptive Expressive Language Disorder
4. Phonological Disorder
5. Childhood onset fluency disorder
6. Dysphagia
7. Speech and language delay due to hearing loss
8. Feeding difficulties
9. Parkinson’s disease
10. Brain injury
11. Stroke
12. Guillain-Barre syndrome
13. Huntington’s disease
14. Wilson’s disease
15. Tumors
16. Myasthenia gravis
17. Muscular dystrophy
18. Lyme disease
19. Traumatic Brain Injury
20. Stroke
21. Brain Disease
22. Dementia
23. Apraxia
24. Aphasia
25. Swallowing Disorder
26. Throat Cancer
27. Social Anxiety
28. Stuttering
29. Cluttering
30. Encephalopathy
31. Acute cerebrovascular accident (CVA) (with subsequent aphasia, dysarthria, and/or visual neglect)
32. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
33. Pneumonia
34. Parkinson’s disease (with subsequent dysarthria and resonance or voice disorders)
35. Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD)
36. Congestive heart failure (CHF)
37. Coronary artery disease (CAD)
38. Esophageal strictures
39. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)
40. Head and neck cancer (HNC)
41. Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
42. Sjogren’s syndrome
43. Fragile X Syndrome
44. Developmental delays
45. Autism
46. Cerebral Palsy
47. Articulation disorders
48. Down syndrome
49. Cleft Palate

Sources: https://www.hearingsol.com/help/speech-therapy/adults/, https://fusionwebclinic.com/simple-guide-cpt-icd-10-speech-therapy/