Overview
Communication Sciences Disorders is an academic department and a professional preparatory program with a dual focus on academic and clinical education. Graduates of CSD graduate-level degree programs are qualified for professional positions in private and public clinical settings and academic settings. The mission of the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders describes a collaborative community of scholars and practitioners with varied and complementary expertise whose goal is to prepare students to be effective and ethical professionals.
Our clinic mirrors our academic programs in terms of excellence and strength and is a vital and critical component of our programs; this is the training ground for our student clinicians. We offer a wide range of speech-language pathology and audiology services to clients of every age and provide our students with an excellent foundation of clinical knowledge and skills.
The Clinical Doctorate in Audiology (AuD) is a four-year post-baccalaureate program. The program requires 87-93 credit hours depending on whether students choose to complete comprehensive exams or a 6-hour capstone.
In the AuD program, graduate student clinicians typically participate in four or five semesters of on-campus clinic. As students proceed through on-campus clinical education experiences and demonstrate proficiency in clinical competencies, they become eligible for mini off-campus clinical experiences in conjunction with their last three semesters of on-campus Clinic. The culminating clinical experience for AuD graduate student clinicians is the completion of a year-long clinical residency that begins in the summer of the third year and ends in the spring of the fourth year. Upon graduation, students should demonstrate mastery of the clinical competencies necessary for practice as an independent beginning professional in audiology.