50 Inspiring SLP Quotes to Amplify Communication

By Norbert Juma

Master quote curator and editor on a mission to inspire

Published July 14, 2023

Are you looking for SLP quotes?

If yes, you have landed on the right page.

Here, we have created a list of the best SLP quotes that are worth sharing.

We have also discussed the different aspects associated with Speech-Language Pathology (SLP).

If interested, please continue reading!

Speech-Language Pathology (SLP) Explained

Speech-Language Pathology (SLP) or speech therapy is a field of healthcare.

SLP helps to deal with human communication disorders through assessment, diagnosis, and treatment.

On the other hand, Speech-Language Pathologists are qualified professionals who work with patients suffering from the following disorders:

Voice Disorders
Speech Production
Cognitive-Communication Disorders
Language Comprehension or Expression
Fluency Disorders
Swallowing Disorders (known as dysphagia)

What is the Role of a Speech-Language Pathologist?

Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) are trained professionals capable of understanding human communication processes.

Below are the critical areas where SLPs can help patients suffering from communication disorders:

Evaluation and Diagnosis
Therapy and Treatment
Help Maximize Communication Potential
Advocacy as well as Education
Treat Feeding and Swallowing Disorders

Evaluation and Diagnosis

To start with, SLPs assess the nature and severity of the disorder through evaluation and diagnosis.

This helps them to understand the level of difficulty experienced by a patient while communicating with others.

Once the evaluation is complete, the next step is diagnosis.

During diagnosis, SLPs carefully understand the type of speech disorder.

It also helps suggest the type of intervention required for the treatment.

Therapy and Treatment

After completing the evaluation, the next step is the treatment.

SLPs create and implement customized treatment plans to meet a person’s needs.

This involves therapeutic exercises that help improve a person’s overall ability to communicate.

During this process, SLPs work in close collaboration with their clients and offer them support as well as motivation.

Help Maximize Communication Potential

SLPs can assist a person with a communication disorder by utilizing a wide array of strategies.

They usually focus on communication enhancement by improving speech clarity, vocabulary development, and articulation.

Advocacy as well as Education

SLPs can also play a critical role when it comes to educating patients and their families.

It allows both the patients and their family members to have a better understanding of communication disorders.

This also helps raise awareness regarding such disorders and how they can affect an individual’s life.

Treat Feeding and Swallowing Disorders

SLPs can also evaluate feeding and swallowing disorders.

This is done by analyzing the pharyngeal and oral functioning.

Furthermore, SLPs also recommend appropriate techniques and modifications to resolve any swallowing or feeding disorder.

SLPs also work in collaboration with occupational therapists and dieticians to tackle various swallowing disorders.

Top 10 SLP Quotes

If you’re interested in speech-language pathology, you’ll love reading our best SLP quotes below.

1. “I’ve got a speech impediment.” — John Cooper Clarke

2. “Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts.” — Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

3. “The ability to speak does not make you intelligent.” — Qui-Gon Jinn

4. “Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” — Rudyard Kipling

5. “The most important thing in communication is to hear what is not being said.” — Peter Drucker

6. “It is a great thing to know the season for speech and the season for silence.” — Seneca the Elder

7. “Words of comfort skillfully administered are the oldest therapy known to man.” — Louis Nizer

8. “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” — Voltaire

9. “The one thing I’ve learned is that stuttering in public is never as bad as I fear it will be.” — John Stossel

10. “You don’t have a choice as to whether you stutter, but you do have a choice as to how you stutter.” — Joseph G. Sheehan

You will also enjoy our article on sign language quotes.

SLP Quotes from CCC-SLP Holders

Holders of the Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology (CCC-SLP) from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association are quoted here.

11. “Communication is the essence of human life.” — Janice Light, Ph.D., CCC-SLP

12. “However it is done, communication is the key to human interaction.” — Amanda Schaumburg, MS, CCC-SLP

13. “Communication is not just about speaking, it’s also about listening and understanding.” — Karen Thatcher, MS, CCC-SLP

14. “When we give a voice to those who cannot speak, we give them a chance to participate in the world.” — Patricia Prelock, Ph.D., CCC-SLP

15. “A child’s voice is one of the most powerful tools we have in the world of speech-language pathology.” — Katie Clark, MS, CCC-SLP

16. “The success of the intervention is dependent on the degree to which families are involved in the process.” — Betsy Furler, MS, CCC-SLP

17. “Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.” — Rita Mae Brown, MS, CCC-SLP

18. “Everyone is always willing to lend a helping hand, collaborate, and give our kids the best therapy possible.” — Rebecca Haber, MS, CCC-SLP

19. “Our job is to facilitate communication, not just between our clients and the world around them, but also between their hearts and minds.” — Mandy Menendez, MS, CCC-SLP

20. “Communication is a skill that you can learn. It’s like riding a bike or typing. If you’re willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of every part of your life.” — Brian Tracy, MS, CCC-SLP

SLP Quotes about Speech Therapy

Speech therapy can help with communication and self-esteem. The following SLP quotes relate specifically to speech therapy.

21. “Well, my brother says Hello. So, hooray for speech therapy.” — Emo Philips

22. “I’ve been working hard: lots of therapy, speech therapy, physical therapy, yoga too.” — Gabrielle Giffords

23. “I couldn’t speak well. I went to speech therapy for 10 years. And I was sort of frustrated in that sense.” — Walter Dean Myers

24. “I suffered from a quite severe speech impediment when I was young, and keeping a journal was part of the therapy.” — George Fetherling

25. “I grew up using hearing aids, and I had speech therapy and so forth, and that helped me to develop a passion for music and helped me to develop my drumming talents.” — Sean Berdy

26. “Speech therapy is an art that deserves to be more widely known. You cannot imagine the acrobatics your tongue mechanically performs in order to produce all the sounds of a language.” — Jean-Dominique Bauby

27. “I had people in my life who didn’t give up on me: my mother, my aunt, my science teacher. I had one-on-one speech therapy. I had a nanny who spent all day playing turn-taking games with me.” — Temple Grandin

28. “What I learned about stammering was that, when as a young child you lose the confidence of anyone who wants to listen to you, you lose confidence in your voice and the right to speech. And a lot of the therapy was saying, ‘You have a right to be heard.’” — Tom Hooper

29. “You need to take small steps when you dream big dreams. I am a published author with dyslexia, a professional speaker who was in speech therapy for three years as a child because I had a lisp, and a slow, stiff kid from the suburbs who became an All-Pro in the NFL.” — Karl Mecklenburg

30. “I’m really focused and committed to teaching now. Maybe when I’m about 30, which is in 10 years, I would like to consider doing something like speech therapy. That’s what I really would like to do. I could go and do that now, but it’s not my drive at the moment. My drive is acting right now.” — Rachel Hurd-Wood

SLP Quotes on Speech Disorder

Now let’s check out the collection of powerful SLP quotes that shed light on the challenges, resilience, and triumphs of individuals facing speech disorders.

31. “My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then, she stops to breathe.” — Jimmy Durante

32. “I was a fat little kid with a speech impediment. I used to get beat up, not just picked on.” — Herschel Walker

33. “I had worked so hard for so long that I developed a speech impediment. It happens when I get tired.” — Tobe Hooper

34. “Keep in mind that… the less you avoid words and situations, the less you will stutter in the long run.” — J.D. Williams

35. “Stuttering is no simple speech impediment. It is a complicated disorder which has both physical and emotional aspects.” — Malcolm Fraser

36. “I like to mumble when I act ’cause I think it’s more realistic. For some reason, the impediment has given me the accent of a Mexican gangster.” — David Arquette

37. “From my earliest days, I have enjoyed an attractive impediment in my speech. I have never permitted the use of the word stammer. I can’t say it myself.” — Patrick Campbell

38. “I mean, I’m 6-foot-11, I’ve got red hair, freckles, I’m a goofy, nerdy-looking guy, I’ve got a speech impediment-I stutter and stammer all the time and I’m a Deadhead.” — Bill Walton

39. “I always wanted to be an actor, but with a speech impediment, it’s tough. I decided to roll the dice and take an acting class, which was very, very nerve-wracking… my stomach would just be in knots.” — Nicholas Brendon

40. “I’m part of a speech therapy program called the McGuire Programme. It teaches you a new way to breathe, a new way to speak, and a brand-new way of tackling the mindsets that come with having a speech impediment. Mainly, it teaches you how to slow things down, and that has really helped me.” — Gareth Gates

More Insightful SLP Quotes on Speech Disorders

Here we offer some truly remarkable SLP quotes that are sure to catch your attention.

41. “Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

42. “I distrust speech therapy. Words are the language of lies and evasions. Music cannot lie. Music talks to the heart.” — Alasdair Gray

43. “If there were some way to distract your mind from thoughts of fear so that you didn’t think about your stuttering, you would probably have no trouble.” — Malcolm Fraser

44. “If all my possessions were taken from me, with one exception, I would choose to keep the power of communication, for by it I would soon regain all the rest.” — Daniel Webster

45. “To communicate is truly a gift. It is a wondrous ability of your amazing human body, the ability that allows us to connect with other humans to give meaning to our lives. I will argue that it is what makes us human.” — Kathleen Depperschmidt

46. “I also had a stuttering problem. In a Mexican home they don’t give you speech therapy; they don’t even know what speech therapy is. They just get the belt. If there’s a parrot in the house, you better talk better than the parrot.” — Felipe Esparza

47. “The role of a speech-language pathologist is to work with children and adults who display the full range of human communication disorders. Our job is to assess and treat speech, language, and swallowing disorders in individuals from infancy through geriatrics.” — Dr. Lemmietta McNeilly

48. “When I was diagnosed, mothers were blamed for causing autism. There was no autism support. They’d put autistic kids in institutions. I had severe autism. But my mom wouldn’t accept that. I was put in speech therapy. My mother was always pushing me to do stuff.” — Temple Grandin

49. “For instance, in group therapy, I’ll have people stand up, show off, give a speech about themselves as though they’ve just died, and have to give a eulogy. Even with this explicit permission – even an order – to say something nice about themselves, this is the hardest thing in the world for people to do. They’d rather take their clothes off.” — Nancy Fr

50. “The pack includes analysis and summary forms as well as very explicit links between assessment and individualized intervention…these materials are often lacking in published therapy programs and are especially helpful…the pack provides very clear guidelines…overall it will be a very significant addition to speech and language therapy practice.” — Linda Armstrong