Ear, Nose and Throat surgeons (ENTs) diagnose a variety of health conditions in children and adults that result in communication disorders or co-exist with communication disorders. Speech-language pathologists/phoniatricians/logopedists assess and treat a variety of communication disorders including dysphagia, voice disorders, and velopharyngeal insufficiency.  Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) work with individuals from new-borns through geriatrics that present with communication disorders and or feeding and swallowing problems.  The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) is the national professional, scientific and credentialing association for 218,000 members and affiliates. SLPs have the knowledge, skills, and expertise to provide high quality clinical services and actively pursue professional development to maintain current certification. SLPs work collaboratively with other professionals to address the functional needs of individuals that present with challenges communicating with others or safely swallowing a variety of foods and liquids. Areas of service delivery address all aspects of communication, swallowing and related areas that impact communication and swallowing, specifically, speech production, fluency, language, cognition, voice, resonance, feeding, swallowing, and hearing. The eight domains of speech-language pathology service delivery are collaboration; counseling; prevention and wellness; screening; assessment; treatment; modalities, technology, and instrumentation; and population and systems. This presentation will focus on assessment and treatment. Competent SLPs diagnose communication and swallowing disorders but do not differentially diagnose medical conditions. SLPs conduct evaluations that include administering standardized assessment tools and informal observations of behaviours and interviews of patients and/or family members. In the United States this includes FEES and stroboscopy.  Speech-language services are designed to optimize individuals’ ability to communicate and swallow, thereby improving quality of life. SLPs develop and implement treatment to address presenting symptoms of a communication or swallowing problem. Treatment establishes a new skill or remediates or restores an impaired ability. The goal of therapy is to improve an individual’s functional outcomes.

Lemmietta McNeilly is an ASHA Fellow, a distinguished scholar and fellow of the National Academy of Practice, and an American Society of Association Executives Certified Association Executive. Presently she serves as ASHA’s chief staff officer for speech-language pathology. Her resume includes international publications and presentations to health care executives, practitioners, and academicians across the globe. She consults with the World Health Organization and the National Academy of Medicine. She has expertise in the following topics; empowering leaders for the changing health care landscape, genomics for health care professionals, interprofessional education and collaborative practice, effective utilization of speech-language pathology assistants and practicing at the top of the license. She has expertise managing teams in neonatal intensive care units, using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) to facilitate functional communication outcomes in culturally and linguistically diverse children living with prenatal drug exposure, human immunodeficiency virus, traumatic brain injury and chronic health conditions.