COMMUNICATION DISORDERS (MS)

Our top-ranked on-campus MS in Communication Disorders provides you with the career-ready skills and hands-on experience you need to make an impact on the lives of people living with communication disorders. Designed for students interested in pursuing certification and preparing for licensure in the field of speech-language pathology, this program is fully accredited by the Council on Academic Accreditation of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA).

Using a family-centered approach, we prepare you for a broad range of disorders and differences across all populations and equip you with the skills to be successful in any career path. You will have access to exceptional clinical opportunities through more than 120 external placements and in our on-campus facility, the Robbins Speech, Language, and Hearing Center, and your program of study at Emerson will satisfy the academic and clinical requirements for the ASHA Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology.

Curriculum

The curriculum offers coursework covering the neurologic bases of typical communication and the study of particular disorder areas, with topics that include:

  • Autism spectrum disorders
  • Aphasia
  • Augmentative and alternative communication
  • Brain injury
  • Developmental language and literacy disorders
  • Voice
  • Dementia
  • Fluency
  • Swallowing
  • Speech sound disorders
  • Motor speech disorders

A range of academic seminars rotate regularly and address special topics in the field, including:

  • Medical speech-language pathology
  • Craniofacial anomalies
  • Communication differences, such as accent modification

The curriculum takes advantage of our technologically enhanced classrooms and laboratories; the Robbins Speech, Language, and Hearing Center; as well as a wide variety of off-campus community clinical sites.