How to Become a Speech-Language Pathologist in Alabama

Being an SLP in Alabama means being a part of something special. Taking individuals of all ages and helping them to communicate clearly, easily, and safely is a calling that comes with all kinds of rewards. But in true Southern fashion, many of those in Alabama come from the people around you.

Becoming a speech pathologist opens the door to becoming part of Alabama’s SLP professional community. The Speech and Hearing Association of Alabama (SHAA) is among the most active of all state organizations for SLPs in the country. That puts your practice squarely in a supportive, affirming environment… one that enables you to do your utmost for patients.

That’s something you’ll find encouraged by the state itself, as well. In 2012, the Alabama Legislature passed the Riley Ward Insurance Reform Act, which compelled private insurance companies in the state to cover autism-focused speech therapy. That opened the door to a boom in both demand and support for SLPs here… and aid for thousands of kids who weren’t otherwise getting it.

Like other states, that treatment in Alabama has to come through licensed speech therapists. If you want to join them, you’ll be following these steps required by the Alabama Board of Examiners for Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology (ABESPA):

	Earn a Speech Therapy Degree: Complete a Qualifying Master’s Degree Program in Speech-Language Pathology
	Gain Required Professional Experience (RPE) Through a Clinical Fellowship Program
	Pass the National Examination and Earn the CCC-SLP Credential
	Become Licensed and Begin Your Career as a Speech-Language Pathologist
	Maintain SLP Licensure and Complete Continuing Education Requirements

Step 1. Earn a Speech Therapy Degree: Complete a Qualifying Master’s Degree Program in Speech-Language Pathology

A master’s degree in speech-language pathology take you both through extensive classroom study in linguistics, psychology, physiology, and physical science, as well as supervised clinical experiences. These come through required practicum classes, which put you in real clinical practice environments under supervision.

Your practicum must be completed during your graduate program and will allow you to gain experience in assessing and treating patients.

Those studies need to hold a specialty accreditation through the Council on Academic Accreditation in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology (CAA). The CAA is a branch of ASHA, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, which publishes a list of approved schools located in Alabama.

Of course, today there are also many excellent accredited online options you can choose that meet the same standards. Students of these programs  complete their coursework online and complete clinical hours in hospitals and clinics in their own area.

Undergraduate Prerequisites for Speech-Language Pathology Master’s Degrees

In order to apply to a master’s program in speech-language pathology, you’ll need to complete certain prerequisite courses that are fundamental to the field. It can be helpful to have a bachelor’s degree in communicative sciences and disorders, but you can also apply to most programs with an unrelated bachelor’s degree in the sciences or liberal arts.

If you don’t have an undergraduate degree related to speech-language pathology, you’ll find many schools will give you the opportunity to complete prerequisite courses online before beginning graduate-level courses.

Standard prerequisite courses include:

• Neuroanatomy and Physiology of Communication
• Phonetics and Phonemics of American English
• Introduction to Audiology
• Speech and Language Development in Children
• Anatomy and Physiology of Speech and Hearing Mechanism
• Audiology: Intervention Strategies across the Lifespan
• Science of Language

In any case, admissions to these elite programs are competitive. To apply to a graduate program, you’ll often need to submit:

• A resume/CV of your experience
• A statement of purpose explaining your goals
• Two letters of recommendation written by academic references
• An official transcript from your undergraduate program
• GRE scores

Graduate Courses in SLP Master’s Programs

Your training is a combination of classroom theory and on-the-ground practice with real patients. The core classroom courses typically include:

• Speech Science: Instrumentation
• Critical Evaluation of Research Communicative Sciences and Disorders
• Motor Speech Disorders
• Language Development and Disorders in School-Aged Children
• Dysphagia in Adults and Children
• Principles of Intervention with Speech-Language Disorders
• Phonological Analysis of Normal and Disordered Speech
• Multi-Cultural Issues in Communicative Sciences and Disorders

You will also have credits to spend on optional classes, as well. You can use these to better shape your career path toward a specialized area of interest, like treating lisping. Electives can include:

• Augmentative and Alternative Communication
• Therapeutic Procedures in Speech Pathology: Voice Disorders
• Craniofacial Anomalies
• Neurogenic Speech Disorders in Children
• Language and Communication in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
• Interdisciplinary Case-Based Dysphagia Management

You will come out of your graduate program with a fundamental knowledge of the biological, physical, and social/behavioral aspects of speech pathology. You’ll also possess knowledge of basic human communication and swallowing processes. That means a strong cultural, anatomical, and psychological bases to develop diagnoses and treatments for any sort of speech disorder. With a practicum behind you that has delivered experience with differing populations and individuals with various communication disorders, you’re about ready to take the next step.

Step 2. Gain Required Professional Experience (RPE) Through a Clinical Fellowship Program

ABESPA’s required professional experience involves an approximately nine-month long clinical fellowship program. While your college may offer some assistance, you are usually responsible for lining up a fellowship position on your own. Fortunately, they are often listed on common SLP job boards, both nationally and with groups like SHAA.

Before you can get started, though, you will need to register with the Board. Submitting a clinical fellowship internship registration requires submitting payment, a fellowship plan and supporting documents:

• Registration application
• $200 application fee
• Notarized statement from the applicant’s supervisor, including:
  • Beginning date of CF and expected completion date
  • Number of hours to be worked each week
  • Place of employment
  • Supervisor’s name and Alabama license number
  • All undergraduate and graduate transcripts

Once you’ve been approved by the board, you’ll receive a registration certificate and can begin supervised practice. That’s going to involve standard SLP duties like assessment, family consultation, treatment, and screening. But the ASHA definitions also include some duties that you might not think of as involving patient contact, like clinical research, record keeping, and report writing.

The clinical fellowship must cover at least 1,820 hours that has to be completed within a maximum of 48 months.

At least 80 percent of your responsibilities during the CF experience have to be in direct client/patient contact.

Through the entire process, your CF mentor will oversee, guide, and evaluate you. They must be a currently established CCC-SLP and have received special training in supervision. At the end of your fellowship, they’ll submit a skill assessment and confirm your hours to the Board (and ASHA, if you plan to apply for a CCC-SLP).

Step 3. Pass the National Examination and Earn the CCC-SLP Credential

At any time during or immediately following your clinical fellowship, you must register through Praxis for the Speech-Language Pathology Exam. That demonstration of knowledge is required to become a licensed speech and language pathologist in Alabama… or to become CCC-SLP certified.

You’ll be covering all the information absorbed over the course of your fellowship and graduate studies. It’s a comprehensive test of the skills you’ll need to function as a first-rate SLP in Alabama, so you’ll want to be prepared.

A good step to take in that direction is to review the Praxis Information Bulletin. You may also review practice questions in the Speech-Language Pathology Praxis Study Companion or purchase Praxis’ interactive practice test.

The computer-based speech-language pathology test has 132 questions that are to be completed over 150 minutes. The questions fall into the following categories:

• Foundation and professional practice—44 questions
• Screening, assessment, evaluation, and diagnosis—44 questions
• Planning, implementation, and evaluation of treatment—44 questions

The questions test knowledge in the areas of:

• Speech and production
• Fluency
• Voice
• Resonance
• Motor speech
• Receptive and expressive language
• Social aspects of communication, including pragmatics
• Cognitive aspects of communication
• Augmentative and alternative communication
• Hearing
• Feeding and swallowing

The test is scored on a 100-200 score scale, and the required minimum score is 162.

In Alabama, you may take the exam at a Praxis test center in many different locations, including cities such as:

• Auburn
• Birmingham
• Huntsville
• Mobile
• Montgomery

There’s also an online option available today, where you can take the test at home while being observed by a remote proctor.

Qualifying for Licensure with the Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology (CCC-SLP)

Earning the CCC-SLP (Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology) professional certification through the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) meets all ABESPA requirements for licensure, too. It also comes with the additional benefit of getting you a national certification recognized in most states and by many employers and patients as a standard of excellence in the field.

To be eligible for ASHA certification, you’ll need to meet the standards outlined in the official CCC-SLP Standards. Unsurprisingly, these mirror ABESPA’s standards closely enough that if you’ve followed all the steps above, you’ll be on path for CCC-SLP certification as well as licensure.

The board accepts evidence of the CCC-SLP or an equivalent certification in lieu of providing evidence of completing the individual education, experience and exam requirements.

If you decide to apply for licensure by earning the Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology (CCC-SLP), you’ll need to jump through the ASHA application hoops before beginning your licensure application with ABESPA. You can expect that to take about six weeks; most commonly, people use this option when they were educated and completed their clinical fellowship in another state before moving to Alabama.

Step 4. Become Licensed and Begin Your Career as a Speech-Language Pathologist

Once you’ve passed the national exam, you’ll need to fill out the application for licensure and mail it to the ABESPA at:

P.O. Box 304760
Montgomery, AL 36130-4760.

You’ll also need to send to the board:

• Undergraduate and graduate transcripts
• Results of the national examination
• A letter from the director of the training program verifying that you have completed the required clinical fellowship experience

If you’re on the CCC-SLP track, you can simply provide proof of your ASHA certification instead of those specific documents. ABEPA also may grant an exception to licensure that allows such individuals to practice during the period between their application and formal evaluation by the board. This is often the case with individuals who are already licensed in other states and applying via reciprocity.

There’s a $200 application fee, and a staggered license fee depending on when you apply so you don’t have to pay the full rate if you’re near the end of the license expiration window.

Finding Work as an SLP in Alabama

Now that you’re a licensed SLP in Alabama, there are three traditional ways to start your career:

Join the Clinic Where You Completed Your Clinical Fellowship

In many cases, SLPs are hired on with the employer that they worked under to gain their professional experience.

It’s a good bet you will already know if this is an option even before you are licensed. You’ll have an idea if you’re interested in staying on, and if your employer is interested in keeping you. Often, clinics prefer to hire SLPs who have worked under them as fellows because they already understand the systems and the clients.

Start an Independent Practice or Partnership

Once licensed, you may also consider starting your own business in order to practice independently. This comes with tremendous freedom and flexibility, but also real challenges in administration, marketing, and other bigger business concepts.

Some SLPs choose to work under a more experienced SLP for a period of time to gain experience and a reference for future clients. Other SLPs use their clinical fellowship provider as a reference while they are getting started.

Pursue Job Openings With Other Major Healthcare and Educational Employers

If you don’t wish to work under your RPE provider or start your own practice, there are still plenty of options for you in Alabama. From clinics to hospitals to rehab centers, there are hundreds of employers in the state who hire SLPs to treat patients.

Depending on your career goals, you may also decide to seek specialty certifications through ASHA. SLPs who want to serve a specific patient population often pursue specialty certification to become more qualified. That makes getting hired easier, while making you more effective at treating those patients.

Step 5. Maintain SLP Licensure and Complete Continuing Education Requirements

In order to maintain SLP licensure, you’ll need to complete 12 continuing education hours each year and renew your license yearly through ABESPA.

There are two content areas that continuing education must focus on:

• Content area I: content that improves the professional competency of the licensee in the area of licensure, such as techniques, tools, and methods directly involved in diagnosis and treatment
• Content area II: content that is related to the professional competency of speech-language pathology, such as ethics or administrative matters

Only two CE hours from content II will be allowed each year.

You’ll be able to complete all of your CEs through the Speech and Hearing Association of Alabama, but ABESPA also offers pre-approval for other providers so you have a wide range of options for expanding your knowledge base.

To renew your license, you’ll need to fill out the renewal form and mail it to the ABESPA. Alternatively, ABESPA now also accepts online renewals on their website.

Speech-Language Pathology Salary in Alabama

There’s a lot of personal satisfaction that comes with a field like speech therapy, but you can’t eat satisfaction. Salaries, particularly after earning an expensive master’s degree, are always going to be a consideration.

Fortunately, in Alabama you will find perfectly generous compensation as an SLP. Statewide, salaries for SLPs range from $52,190 at the low end to $104,300 or more for top earners. This works out to an hourly rate of $25.09 to $50.14 or more. Among the highest earning SLPs in Alabama (top 10%), those working in Gadsden hold the top spot.

Job Growth in a High-Paying Field that Promises Job Satisfaction

In Alabama, speech-language pathology is such a promising field that it earned a place on two lists published by the state’s Department of Labor:

• Alabama’s Hot 40 High-Demand Occupations
• Alabama’s Fastest Growing Occupations

In fact, the US Department of Labor expects the number of speech-language pathologists in the state will increase by 23% between 2020 and 2030. That’s even faster than the national rate of increase for this promising field. The rate of growth predicted for this ten-year period is expected to lead to an average of 160 new SLP jobs becoming available in Alabama each year.

Both academic and private sector audiology and communicative disorder centers offer career opportunities for speech-language pathologists. Schools and educational institutions are big employers, as are healthcare centers, hospitals, and rehabilitation facilities.

A Detailed Salary Analysis for Speech-Language Pathologists in Alabama

Where you work can also be a factor in how much you earn as an SLP. Salary and hourly wage ranges for SLPs in Alabama’s major cities are shown here for comparison (10th – 90th percentile):

Anniston-Oxford:

• Annual: $50,800 – $106,590
• Hourly: $24.42 – $51.24

Metro Auburn:

• Annual: $55,100 – $98,070
• Hourly: $26.49 – $47.15

Metro Birmingham:

• Annual: $61,010 – $107,470
• Hourly: $29.33 – $51.67

Metro Daphne:

• Annual: $51,030 – $94,360
• Hourly: $24.54 – $45.37

Decatur:

• Annual: $50,950 – $92,870
• Hourly: $24.49 – $44.65

Dothan:

• Annual: $52,480 – $104,990
• Hourly: $25.23 – $50.48

Metro Florence:

• Annual: $48,510 – $111,740
• Hourly: $23.32 – $53.72

Gadsden:

• Annual: $54,030 – $116,880
• Hourly: $25.98 – $56.19

Huntsville:

• Annual: $55,860 – $100,260
• Hourly: $26.86 – $48.20

Mobile:

• Annual: $56,420 – $97,610
• Hourly: $27.13 – $46.93

Montgomery:

• Annual: $50,370 – $97,880
• Hourly: $24.22 – $47.06

Tuscaloosa:

• Annual: $55,590 – $102,150
• Hourly: $26.73 – $49.11

2023 US Bureau of Labor Statistics salary figures shown here for Speech-Language Pathologists. Job growth projections are from the US Department of Labor-sponsored resource, CareerOneStop. Figures are based on state data, not school-specific information. Conditions in your area may vary. Data accessed March 2025.

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