Does My Child Need an SLP or a Tutor?

As a pediatric speech-language pathologist, I know that parents and caregivers want to make sure they have the best person working with their child, but it can be difficult to determine the right professional to call.  

Let’s talk about tutoring first.  There are no federal or state requirements for being a tutor.  A tutor might be your neighbor who is majoring in biology or maybe a former teacher in your community.  Tutoring companies might have proprietary training and qualifications. 

Tutoring is a great way to bolster academic skills in a specific subject area, which can help your child succeed in school.

Speech-language pathology is a whole different ball of wax.  Speech language pathologists (SLPs) complete a two year masters degree, a 9 month clinical fellowship, and are required to be licensed in all 50 states.  What’s more, to maintain their licenses, SLPs also need to complete frequent continuing education to stay up to date with the latest research.

The scope of speech language pathology is too wide to go into for the purposes of this blog, but you can read more about that here. SLPs work with people across the lifespan and in a variety of settings, from the schools to private practice to acute care hospitals and more.

But, if you’re wondering about speech therapy vs tutoring, you might be thinking more about a child who has difficulties with speech sounds, language, or literacy.

SLPs work with children who have a communication disorder to provide individualized therapeutic intervention.  Given their training, SLPs can take into consideration things like developmental delays, executive functioning skills, hearing loss, neurological deficits, muscle weakness or discoordination, and more. Whereas a tutor focuses on teaching academic skills, an SLP focuses on habilitating or rehabilitating skills that occur across academics and throughout everyday life.

For example, a child who has difficulty understanding the different types of triangles might benefit from geometry tutoring. Conversely, a child who struggles in math because they have difficulty understanding word problems might benefit from working with an SLP.  In this case, the SLP can help the child improve their comprehension of complex language across domains.

It’s important to make sure that your child is working with the right professional.  A tutor can teach your child specific academic skills and strategies to improve their performance in school.  A pediatric SLP provides highly skilled interventions to improve spoken and written communication skills across all aspects of daily life.

If you think your child could benefit from speech therapy, and you live in North Carolina or Texas, reach out to us today!