Speech-Language Pathologist
213,968 active US providers register Speech-Language Pathologist as their primary taxonomy. That is 2.3% of every provider in the registry, and the 8th largest of 584 specialties with a page here.
- Taxonomy code
- 235Z00000X
- Grouping
- Speech, Language and Hearing Service Providers
- Classification
- Speech-Language Pathologist
- Active providers
- 213,968
- States covered
- 51 of 51
What the code means
The speech-language pathologist is the professional who engages in clinical services, prevention, advocacy, education, administration, and research in the areas of communication and swallowing across the life span from infancy through geriatrics. Speech-language pathologists address typical and atypical impairments and disorders related to communication and swallowing in the areas of speech sound production, resonance, voice, fluency, language (comprehension and expression), cognition, and feeding and swallowing.
Definition quoted verbatim from the NUCC Health Care Provider Taxonomy code set, version 25.1. Not paraphrased.
Where they are
Counted by practice location, not by mailing address or by licence state. A provider practising across a state line is counted where they practise.
| State | Providers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| New York | 25,591 | |
| Texas | 18,309 | |
| California | 13,938 | |
| Florida | 13,177 | |
| Illinois | 10,925 | |
| North Carolina | 7,981 | |
| Ohio | 7,847 | |
| Pennsylvania | 7,469 | |
| New Jersey | 5,509 | |
| Georgia | 5,395 | |
| Virginia | 5,255 | |
| Missouri | 5,216 | |
| Maryland | 4,838 | |
| Arizona | 4,801 | |
| Colorado | 4,764 |
Showing the 15 largest of 51 states with at least one.
Who registers under this code
198,671 of these are people and 15,297 are organisations, so 7% of the code is businesses rather than clinicians. Half of them had registered by 2016, and 63,013 registered in the last five years, 29% of the current population.
That is close to the pace of the registry as a whole.
Where the practices are
By practice-location city. City counts are noisier than state counts, because a large employer files one address for many providers.
- BROOKLYN, NY3,272
- NEW YORK, NY2,655
- CHICAGO, IL1,925
- HOUSTON, TX1,624
- SAN ANTONIO, TX1,260
- BRONX, NY1,189
- AUSTIN, TX1,183
- STATEN ISLAND, NY1,131
- MIAMI, FL1,118
- SAINT LOUIS, MO1,101
What else they list
Providers whose primary code is Speech-Language Pathologist most often carry these secondary taxonomies as well. This is the closest thing the registry has to a map of which specialties overlap in practice, and it is not published anywhere else.
| Also listed | Providers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Occupational Therapist | 2,072 | 1.0% |
| Physical Therapist | 1,314 | 0.6% |
| Speech-Language Assistant | 1,223 | 0.6% |
| Student in an Organized Health Care Education/Training Program | 715 | 0.3% |
| Developmental Therapist | 599 | 0.3% |
| Behavior Analyst | 599 | 0.3% |
| Behavior Technician | 515 | 0.2% |
| Pediatric Occupational Therapist | 427 | 0.2% |
Looking up a specific provider
These counts come from the monthly NPPES file. To check one provider, use their NPI: the lookup reads the live registry and shows whether the identifier is still active, which the monthly file cannot tell you about the last few weeks.
Counts from npidata_pfile_20050523-20260712.csv, built 2026-08-09. Primary taxonomy only, deactivated identifiers excluded.