The gender imbalance among speech and language therapists and students

Abstract

Speech and language therapy is still a predominantly female profession. This paper reports the numbers and percentages of males among the population of student speech and language therapists in the UK in 1999-2000. The numbers imply that there is no prospect of redressing the gender imbalance in the near future. Information was gathered by means of a questionnaire to male speech and language therapy students and male therapists on the reasons for their career choice and their occupation-related experiences concerning their gender. Most therapists reported advantages from their gender but a minority reported difficulties arising from being a man in the speech and language therapy profession. The issue of working alone with children is identified as being in urgent need of resolution.