Speaking is important to us.
Everyone's voice should be heard.
At the West Tennessee Hearing and Speech Center we are breaking down communication barriers every day.
What is a speech-language pathologist?
Speech-language pathologists (SLPs), often informally known as speech therapists, are professionals educated in the study of human communication, its development, and its disorders. They hold at least a master's degree and state certification/licensure in the field, as well as a certificate of clinical competency from ASHA (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association)
By assessing the speech, language, cognitive-communication, and swallowing skills of children and adults, speech-language pathologists can identify types of communication problems and the best way to treat them.
SLPs treat problems in the areas of
- articulation
- dysfluency
- oral-motor
- speech, and voice
- receptive and expressive language disorders
- cognition
Meet our speech-language pathologists.
Who needs our Help?
- The prevalence of speech sound disorders in young children is 8-9%.
- By the first grade, roughly 5% of children have noticeable speech disorders; the majority of these speech disorders have no known cause.
- Between 6 and 8 million people in the United States have some form of language impairment.
- About one million persons in the United States have aphasia (partial or complete impairment of language comprehension and expression caused by brain damage, most often from stroke).
- It is estimated that more than 3 million Americans stutter.
- Approximately 7.5 million people in the United States have a voice disorder.
Source: National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Speech-language therapy is the treatment for children and adults with speech and/or language disorders. A speech disorder refers to a problem with the actual production of sounds, whereas a language disorder refers to a difficulty understanding or putting words together to communicate ideas.