Certified speech-language pathologists may be required to hold an American Heart Association BLS depending on their state of practice and healthcare employer. Many certified SLPs choose to specialize informally, meaning that they focus on one component of speech, language, or swallowing, on a specific age group, or on a specific patient group. For example, an SLP may mainly assist individuals with speech disfluency, work exclusively with geriatric patients, or focus on post-surgical patients. Some speech-language pathologists, however, choose to pursue formal specialization through the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). An SLP may only apply for specialization after obtaining his or her national certification, the Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology (CCC-SLP), and meeting the requisite experience. At this point they can apply to become a Board Certified Specialist (BCS) in one of the following areas: American Board of Child Language and Language Disorders American Board of Fluency and Fluency Disorders, American Board of Swallowing and Swallowing Disorders, American Audiology Board of Intraoperative Monitoring

Speech-language pathologists work to prevent, identify, and overcome various speech, language, communication, and swallowing disorders or challenges.

SLPs are equipped to assist an array of people - from children to the elderly - with a variety of problems with speech, language, communication, comprehension, and dysphagia. Sometimes the struggles people have in these areas are congenital (for example, autism often creates social communication disorders), though they can also arise after an injury, a degenerative disease, stroke, surgery, or traumatic head injury, or as a result of aging.