The Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences (SLHS) studies the normal development of speech, language and hearing as well as the understanding and clinical management of disorders of these processes. The undergraduate program in SLHS prepares students to apply for graduate education in either Speech-Language Pathology or Audiology.

A speech-language pathologist is a person trained to diagnose and modify communication disorders.  An audiologist is concerned with hearing and is trained to provide diagnostic audiological services, hearing aids and aural rehabilitation for the hearing impaired.  Counseling for the communicatively handicapped person and parents or other family members is an important aspect of the work of both the speech-language pathologist and the audiologist.

Courses offer students basic information about normal and disordered communication.  This area of study may be attractive to the student who has a strong academic background and who is comfortable in learning how to apply information from the biological, physical, and social sciences to the assessment and management of individuals with language, speech and hearing disorders.