Jobs / Healthcare / 29-1127.00
Speech-Language Pathologists
Assess and treat persons with speech, language, voice, and fluency disorders. May select alternative communication systems and teach their use. May perform research related to speech and language problems.
- US jobs
- 183,390
- Median wage
- $97,870 a year
- Job family
- Healthcare
Can agents do the work of speech-language pathologists?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Healthcare:
- Task levelPartialOne benchmark, from early 2025. On Stanford's MedAgentBench, where agents do clinical tasks in a simulated electronic health record, the best recorded model completes 69.7% of tasks (Claude 3.5 Sonnet v2). It has no maintained leaderboard, so newer models are not measured. No benchmark in our collection tests work with patients.
- Project levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. GDPval includes nurses among its 44 occupations. OpenAI reports that GPT-5.5's deliverables won or tied against professionals' work in 84.9% of comparisons across all occupations. No benchmark in our collection tests clinical work over days, such as managing a patient's care.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in healthcare, not always this occupation's tasks.
- 1846 EloClaude Opus 5.5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) · 23 Sep 2026Unrated
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Evaluate hearing or speech and language test results, barium swallow results, or medical or background information to diagnose and plan treatment for speech, language, fluency, voice, or swallowing disorders.
- Write reports and maintain proper documentation of information, such as client Medicaid or billing records or caseload activities, including the initial evaluation, treatment, progress, and discharge of clients.
- Monitor patients' progress and adjust treatments accordingly.
- Develop or implement treatment plans for problems such as stuttering, delayed language, swallowing disorders, or inappropriate pitch or harsh voice problems, based on own assessments and recommendations of physicians, psychologists, or social workers.
- Administer hearing or speech and language evaluations, tests, or examinations to patients to collect information on type and degree of impairments, using written or oral tests or special instruments.
- Educate patients and family members about various topics, such as communication techniques or strategies to cope with or to avoid personal misunderstandings.
- Supervise or collaborate with therapy team.
- Participate in and write reports for meetings regarding patients' progress, such as individualized educational planning (IEP) meetings, in-service meetings, or intervention assistance team meetings.
- Teach clients to control or strengthen tongue, jaw, face muscles, or breathing mechanisms.
- Instruct clients in techniques for more effective communication, such as sign language, lip reading, or voice improvement.
- Consult with and advise educators or medical staff on speech or hearing topics, such as communication strategies or speech and language stimulation.
- Develop speech exercise programs to reduce disabilities.
Other job titles for this occupation (26)
Bilingual Speech-Language Pathologist (Bilingual SLP) · Pediatric Speech-Language Pathologist (Pediatric SLP) · Speech and Language Clinician · Speech and Language Specialist · Speech and Language Teacher · Speech and Language Therapist · Speech Clinician · Speech Pathologist · Speech Therapist · Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) · Home Health SLP (Home Health Speech Language Pathologist) · Language Pathologist · Oral Therapist · Pediatric SLP (Pediatric Speech Language Pathologist) · Public School Speech Clinician · Public School Speech Therapist · School SLP (School Speech Language Pathologist) · SLP CF (Speech Language Pathologist Clinical Fellow) · SNF RN (Skilled Nursing Facility Registered Nurse) · Speech Correction Consultant · Speech Language Pathologist · Speech-Language Specialist · Teletherapy SLP (Teletherapy Speech Language Pathologist) · Travel SLP (Travel Speech Language Pathologist) · Virtual School SLP (Virtual School Speech Language Pathologist) · Voice Pathologist