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Professionals · code 2266

Audiologists and speech therapists

Audiologists and speech therapists evaluate, manage and treat physical disorders affecting human hearing, speech, communication and swallowing. They prescribe corrective devices or rehabilitative therapies for hearing loss, speech disorders and related sensory and neural problems, and provide counselling on hearing safety and communication performance. Tasks include - (a) evaluating hearing, speech and language performance in patients to determine the nature of hearing and communication disorders; (b) administering hearing or speech/language tests or other examinations using specialized diagnostic instruments and equipment, and interpreting test results alongside other medical, social and behavioural diagnostic data to determine appropriate courses of treatment; (c) planning, directing and participating in counselling, screening, speech rehabilitation and other programmes related to hearing and communication; (d) prescribing hearing aids and other assistive devices according to patients’ needs and instructing them in their use; (e) planning and conducting treatment programmes to manage physical disorders affecting speech and swallowing; (f) counselling and guiding hearing and/or language-impaired individuals, their families, teachers and employers; (g) referring patients and families to additional medical or educational services if needed. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Audiologist - Language therapist - Speech pathologist - Speech therapist

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 184 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • audiologist
  • speech and language therapist

Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.

76.2
Holds up
against AI Not Exposed

AI could take on 23.8 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 23.8 = 76.2

That's the whole sum, and you can check it against the ILO's study.

30.4
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, averaged across 2 US jobs

25.9
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 41.2 · hand skill 25 · cramped spaces 11.4 · averaged

Kind of hands-on work · hands-on under 50 Less than half hands-on

Less than half of this job is hands-on. Robots still matter, but for a smaller part of the work, so we don't sort it any further.

estimated O*NET 31.0 BLS occupational crosswalk chain ISCO-08 to 2010 SOC (Aug 2012, rev. Jun 2015); 2010 to 2018 SOC (Nov 2017); O*NET-SOC 2019 taxonomy data 0.7-work-setting measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

What this number leaves out This job rates 30.4 out of 100 for how hands-on it is. The score above only looks at AI tools, not robots, but for work this far from the physical that matters less.

The tasks behind the score

The score is the average of these. A job is really a bundle of tasks, and an average can hide how uneven that bundle is.

The task AI could do most of scores 28, while the average is 23.8. A big gap means some of this job is wide open to AI and some of it barely at all. That's quite different from a job where everything sits somewhere in the middle, even when the averages match.

  1. 28

    Administering hearing or speech/language tests or other examinations using specialized diagnostic instruments and equipment, and interpreting test results alongside other medical, social and behavioural diagnostic data to determine appropriate courses of treatment

    Low
  2. 27

    Referring patients and families to additional medical or educational services if needed.

    Low
  3. 25.3

    Counselling and guiding hearing and/or language-impaired individuals, their families, teachers and employers

    Low
  4. 23.5

    Evaluating hearing, speech and language performance in patients to determine the nature of hearing and communication disorders

    Very Low
  5. 23.5

    Planning, directing and participating in counselling, screening, speech rehabilitation and other programmes related to hearing and communication

    Very Low
  6. 22.1

    Planning and conducting treatment programmes to manage physical disorders affecting speech and swallowing

    Very Low
  7. 17

    Prescribing hearing aids and other assistive devices according to patients’ needs and instructing them in their use

    Very Low

7 tasks · the High to Very Low labels are the ILO's

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.7-work-setting

Helped, or replaced?

The score above can't tell a tool that makes you faster from one that does the task instead of you. Jobs and Skills Australia looked at those two things separately, and this is their result, matched to this job.

One Australian job matches, but only partly: not everyone in it does this job. Treat the numbers as a rough guide.

AI helps you
69
AI does it for you
30

Helping wins by 39 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 2527

Compared with similar jobs

There are 92 jobs in the “Professionals” group, averaging 61.2. This one is above that.