Can I be a speech therapist if I don’t like to talk a lot?

Q&A guru: Can I be a speech therapist if I don’t like to talk a lot?
So the reason I’ve been contemplating a career in speech therapy is because I have always been great at English and language arts in school. I think I would do great in the phonetics and semantics classes. Also, I think that I work well with kids and have a creative streak (I work with kids at a sunday school). The working conditions are also really great and it’s not very high stress. I think that I definitely have the patience for it. But the thing is….I am wondering whether you need to be super outgoing in order to be one. I am sort of introverted, but not necessarily shy. I am one of those types that if I have nothing to say, I won’t say anything. What do you think?

Answers and Views:

Answer by boogeywoogy
The idea of speech therapy is to elicit verbal, gestural, and/or written output from patients. In other words, they are the ones who should be doing most of the talking. You’re just there to facilitate and reinforce the behavior.
While most of the speech pathologists I’ve known were highly verbal and very friendly, I’ve known some who were the exact opposite and were effective in spite of it. Some became managers, some stayed as clinicians.