Throughout the world, the speech-language pathology profession is responsible for studying the communication and swallowing of individuals. Similarly, it seeks to prevent, assess, diagnose, and treat speech, language, hearing, cognition, and swallowing impairments at any stage of the life course. In this way, it guarantees the communicative well-being of the citizens and populations of all nations. As much as the profession has managed to demonstrate the results of its actions at levels such as concrete functional performance or the gain in years of healthy life resulting from the rehabilitation of communication disabilities, the profession has failed miserably, especially in developing countries. , in demonstrating their results in terms of the profitability of social investment. Therefore, speech therapy in these latitudes must assume the intricate task of explicitly identifying the economic benefits of their interventions.

To date, only in some of the societies in which speech therapy has prospered to a greater extent, has the beneficial effects of what is invested in rehabilitating been demonstrated, with economic indices, and not exclusively physiological, social or humanitarian reasons. to people with communication disabilities with the purpose of promoting their autonomy and participation in social life. Still, the literature on the health, educational, and social costs associated with compromised communication and oral-pharyngeal function remains relatively sparse. A cursory review of the literature reveals notable attempts to characterize the economic burden of speech and language disabilities,6 the return on investment associated with speech and language programs in childhood,7 as well as cost-benefit analyzes or biased analyses. cost-effectiveness. Although some studies have analyzed the cost-effectiveness of programs with more extensive results, it is emphasized that the paucity of studies that examine the cost-effectiveness of speech-language interventions for speech, language and oral-pharyngeal function.

The lack of economic studies in the speech-language pathology territory could be explained, at least in part, by the fact that many projects do not go beyond the efficacy evaluation phase, a common event in the Colombian speech-language pathology agenda. For their part, a considerable number of larger studies err when it comes to providing sufficient information to estimate the total cost of interventions. Considering the above, it is acceptable that, in a health system such as the Colombian one, which has financial restrictions, not only clinical efficacy should be considered, but also the economic implications of any program. In this way, the speech-language pathology profession must not only attend to the social benefits experienced by people in improving their speech, language, hearing and/or pharyngeal oral function processes; Rather, they must strive to find out the most efficient method of intervention to improve results. In addition, cost-effectiveness analyses, which can be derived from or integrated into ongoing studies, allow political and managerial instances to assess the real economic cost of an additional intervention program or of changing existing speech-language pathology practices. It is important to highlight that, in a cost-effectiveness analysis, clinical outcomes are an essential part of the comparison of interventions; as a result, decision makers cannot automatically conclude that a cheaper but less effective intervention is necessarily preferable.

To conclude, in recent years, speech therapy literature in Colombia and in the world has warned about the urgent need to unify the economic benefits of their interventions. At the time, it is necessary that the speech-language pathology research agenda clarify the savings in Colombian pesos for the care of patients with communicative and swallowing disorders. Equally important is the training of speech-language pathology human talent in terms of economic evaluation in health. This could facilitate decision-making related to health spending associated with speech-language pathology actions and the social recognition of the profession.

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