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The pandemic exposed a lot of the vulnerabilities in the healthcare system: issues with access to care, safe working conditions, and workforce well-being. A lot of those issues are still impacting clinicians and patients. But I think we’re more adept as clinicians at working through difficult problems and big unknowns.
– Angela Morrell, MA, CCC-SLP, Associate Director of Healthcare Services in Speech-Language Pathology for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)
Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) played a unique and critical role during the Covid-19 pandemic. Working in acute settings, they were central to the assessment and management of dysphagia — difficulty swallowing — particularly for patients recovering from prolonged periods of intubation and/or tracheostomy. SLPs helped reduce patient aspiration risk, pneumonia, and length of hospital stay. And they worked with patients in voice and airway rehabilitation, addressing laryngeal injury and breathing-speech coordination problems that emerged after mechanical ventilation.
While the pandemic is over, its effects are still acutely felt by SLPs and their patients. SLPs have been instrumental in treating the cognitive-communication impairments that present in the aftermath of Covid-19—the attention, memory, and executive-function deficits often described as brain fog—and in cases of long Covid, which have affected tens of millions of Americans (CDC 2025).
To learn more about how SLPs have adapted since the pandemic, read on.
Meet the Expert: Angela Morrell, MA, CCC-SLP
Angela Morrell is an associate director of healthcare services in speech-language pathology at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). She is a speech-language pathologist (SLP) with experience in acute, outpatient, and subacute settings. She has a strong commitment to dysphagia care, particularly the critical thinking and problem-solving it requires. Morrell earned her BA in linguistics from Georgetown University and her MA in speech-language pathology from the University of Maryland.
How SLPs Responded to the Covid-19 Pandemic
“We had to do a lot of quick learning in the early days of the pandemic,” Morrell says. “We learned a lot about ourselves and how adaptable we are as clinicians.”
During the first wave of Covid-19, speech-language pathologists had to respond rapidly. In acute care, they adapted their dysphagia, communication, and cognitive assessments to strict infection-control protocols. They learned, on the job, about how Covid-19 worked and how it was impacting people after hospitalization. And all the while, SLPs fought through the struggles of the wider healthcare system: high-stress working conditions, an understaffed physical environment, and a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE).
“The pandemic exposed a lot of the vulnerabilities in the healthcare system: issues with access to care, safe working conditions, and workforce well-being,” Morrell says. “A lot of those issues are still impacting clinicians and patients. But I think we’re more adept as clinicians at working through difficult problems and big unknowns.”
It was also an opportunity for SLPs to show the rest of the interdisciplinary team—which can include doctors, nurses, neuropsychologists, respiratory therapists, occupational therapists, and more—the value of their work, particularly in combating the symptoms of a communicable disease that was still evolving. That value has only become clearer as more Americans deal with long Covid.
“We always knew that we were essential for patients’ recovery, whether for communication, swallowing, or cognition, but I think our involvement in the early days of the pandemic—and also in helping patients who have lasting effects from Covid—really established us as essential members of the interdisciplinary team,” Morrell says.
Life After Covid-19
Like practically every other area of healthcare, SLPs experienced workforce shortages during the pandemic. To some extent, SLP shortages still exist today, but for mostly non-pandemic-related reasons, such as limited access to care in rural and underserved areas. But one holdover of the pandemic response is offering an answer: telepractice.
“Telepractice has become ubiquitous,” Morrell says. “It still has its drawbacks: not everybody can access it, and there are insurance limitations in some areas. But it’s a big shift.”
ASHA maintains a practice portal on its website that provides clinicians with tips and tricks for porting their practice into the digital realm. But it’s not right for every situation: clinicians must be able to deliver telepractice in a manner that provides an equal level of quality to that of in-person service. Furthermore, not every patient has access to the hardware, internet connection, or tech literacy needed to make telepractice work. And some assessments can only be done in person, such as modified barium swallow studies or a flexible endoscopic evaluation of swallowing (FEES).
“Patient selection is important,” Morrell says. “There are many considerations for a clinician to ensure that whatever services they’re providing via telepractice are equal to what they could provide in an in-person session.”
The Future for SLPs
Covid may be in the rearview for many, but it’s clear and present for SLPs and the millions of Americans experiencing long Covid: a constellation of symptoms that persist long after an initial infection. Much about long Covid is still not understood, and research programs are ongoing. Many specialty clinics that popped up during the pandemic to address long Covid symptoms are now closed—but SLPs remain on the front lines. ASHA even offers a public-facing tool that helps individuals locate an SLP to address the challenges associated with long Covid.
“People are still experiencing long Covid, with symptoms like brain fog, cognitive fatigue, and other cognitive difficulties that have lasted for years after the infection,” Morrell says. “Those are patients who were hospitalized, but also patients who had milder infections. SLPs are still serving that population, helping them improve their cognitive skills and their communication.”
Looking into the future, workforce conditions remain a concern. SLPs are focused on maintaining sustainable workloads, clinician well-being, and recognition as essential contributors to patient outcomes.
“A big thing that we do as SLPs is self-advocate for our role,” Morrell says. “Whether it’s in a home health setting or in a hospital, we want to prove our value, so other professions know to involve us early. That’s only going to lead to better outcomes for patients.”
SLPs are an integral part of interprofessional practice. As proven during the pandemic, when different healthcare professionals come together in a conversation about the patient’s care—with the patient and their family at the center—everyone benefits.
“We can contribute a lot when it comes to helping a patient and their family communicate their preferences,” Morrell says. “We are communication specialists. And when we have a seat at the table with the interprofessional team, it’s not only going to increase our visibility as a profession, it’s going to improve the patient’s outcomes.”
