Main Departmental Office
Speech and Hearing Center, Room 260
Mailing Address:
1155 Union Circle #305010
Denton, TX 76203-5017
940-565-2481
Web site: www.sphs.unt.edu
Graduate Faculty: Amlani, Cokely, Dinkins, Gopal, Lu, Moore, Olness, Schafer, Terrell.
The primary goal of the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences is to prepare students to work professionally with communicatively disabled individuals. The department provides course work, laboratory training and clinical practicum experiences that enable students to satisfy the educational and clinical requirements for national professional certification and state licensure in speech-language pathology, audiology, or both. A second and equally important mission of the department is the professional development of the discipline through research and clinical services.
The Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences possesses research laboratory space and state-of-the-art equipment to conduct a wide range of investigations on both the normal and abnormal production, perception, recognition and understanding of speech and language. Research includes studies of auditory evoked potentials, speech perception, articulation, language, motor speech disorders, vocal pathologies and swallowing disorders. Other ongoing research projects investigate communication assessment and rehabilitation techniques including hearing aids, cochlear implants, and auditory processing in children and adults; hearing loss in musicians in conjunction with the Center for Music and Medicine; the investigation of auditory cortical neuron pattern processing studies in collaboration with the Department of Biological Sciences; and the study of vocal inharmonicity analysis in conjunction with the Department of Physics.
The graduate programs in both speech-language pathology and audiology are accredited by the Council on Academic Accreditation of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) (10801 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852; 800-498-2071). Students who earn the master’s degree in speech-language pathology and the doctorate in audiology will be provided with the opportunity to meet the academic and clinical practicum requirements for ASHA’s Certificate of Clinical Competence in their specialty areas. Those students whose programs of study at the master’s or doctoral level satisfy the ASHA requirements will simultaneously satisfy the requirements for licensure by the State of Texas in the professional area of the student’s degree program.
Admission to the graduate degree program in speech and hearing sciences is competitive. Available facilities and clinical resources do not permit admission of all qualified applicants.
Admission forms may be obtained from the Dean of the Toulouse School of Graduate Studies.
Speech-language pathology students are admitted in the fall and spring semesters; audiology students are admitted only in the fall semester. For admission in the following fall semester, all required materials should be postmarked and filed by February 15 for the speech-language pathology program and by March 1 for the audiology program. For admission in the following spring semester, all required materials should be postmarked and filed by September 15 for the speech-language pathology program.
All required material (including GRE scores) must be on file before prospective applicants will be considered for admission. Undergraduates who plan to apply for graduate study should arrange to take the GRE during their junior or senior year.
In addition to the admission requirements of the graduate school, the department requires the following.
1. A grade point average (GPA) of at least 3.0 on the last 60 hours of undergraduate work or an overall GPA of 2.8 on all undergraduate work.
2. A GPA of at least 3.0 on all speech and hearing sciences course work, including those courses taken to remove undergraduate deficiencies.
3. All students must submit satisfactory scores on the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) prior to admission. Students will not be provisionally admitted to the master’s programs in speech pathology or audiology. For standardized admission test requirements, contact the department or the Toulouse School of Graduate Studies.
4. Three satisfactory letters of recommendation, including at least two from the last academic institution attended.
5. A personal statement discussing one’s life, experiences, strengths and weaknesses, and professional goals.
Letters of recommendation and the personal statement should be addressed to: Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle #305010, Denton, TX 76203-5017.
In all cases, the department maintains the right to make independent inquiry of the applicant’s references and the faculties of institutions previously attended as well as to deny admission to an applicant who, in its judgment, fails to meet personal or academic admission standards. In all cases the applicant is assured the right to due process.
Individuals applying to the graduate program in speech-language pathology without a minimum of 15 hours of undergraduate course work in speech and hearing sciences but who otherwise meet departmental GPA and GRE admission requirements will be required to complete at least 15 hours of course work at the undergraduate level in this discipline before proceeding to graduate study. Depending upon undergraduate preparation, additional undergraduate course work may be necessary to meet requirements for professional certification and licensing.
Individuals applying to the professional doctoral program in audiology without course work in normal speech, language, speech disorders, and language disorders will be required to complete courses in these subjects. These courses may be taken concurrently with graduate-level courses in audiology.
Individuals, regardless of their prior undergraduate major, who do not meet the departmental GPA requirements and who still wish to enter the departmental graduate program, will be required to take a 30-semester-hour program of undergraduate course work in this discipline at the University of North Texas and earn a GPA of 3.0 or better. Individuals who successfully meet this requirement must resubmit their application for graduate admission to this program and will still be required to satisfy the departmental GRE requirements.
Students admitted to the Toulouse School of Graduate Studies as non-degree students are restricted from enrollment in the following:
a. graduate-level courses in speech pathology and audiology; and
b. SPHS 5060, 5065, 6010, or 6020 (clinical practicum) courses for graduate credit.
Non-degree students who register for any of these courses will be subject to administrative withdrawal. Non-degree students may enroll in undergraduate courses for undergraduate credit only.
The department offers graduate programs leading to the following degrees:
Two options are available:
Each of these options includes 6 graduate semester hours in audiology.
A final written comprehensive examination is required of all students who do not write a thesis. Those who write a thesis will be examined by the thesis committee about the thesis topic. The comprehensive examination will focus upon the various content areas of speech-language pathology, including normal aspects of speech, language, swallowing and hearing, rather than upon specific courses that may constitute an individual degree plan.
The department offers the Doctor of Audiology (AuD) degree. This is a post-baccalaureate four-year degree and includes:
In most circumstances, all academic course work is to be completed in three years. Students in their fourth year of the program will complete a clinical residency. Prior to beginning the clinical residency, all students are required to complete a directed research project or its equivalent and pass comprehensive, formative, and summative examinations.
1. All students must maintain a B average on all courses that receive graduate credit.
2. Students may earn a grade of C in no more than two graduate courses. Students may repeat two courses in which they received a grade of C. They may repeat any given course only once.
3. Students admitted to a graduate program should consider a clinical practicum an integral part of their graduate study. All speech and language pathology graduate students must enroll in SPHS 5060/5065 for a minimum of 6 semester credit hours. All audiology doctoral students must enroll in SPHS 6010 through SPHS 6090 for a minimum of 36 semester credit hours. Degree candidates may petition the department chair in writing for an exemption from clinical enrollment. Such a petition should be submitted prior to the registration period of the term/semester for which an exemption is sought.
4. Students are expected to make satisfactory progress in clinical practicum throughout their program. If a student does not receive a passing grade in any term/semester, the student will not receive credit for the clinical clock hours.
5. A student may be removed from the audiology or speech and language pathology program in this department when failure to make satisfactory progress has been documented. Unsatisfactory progress shall be defined as:
a. a grade of C or below in more than two courses. This includes any and every course repeated for a higher grade as well as any course listed as a prerequisite for graduate study;
b. a grade of NP in two or more enrollments of clinical practicum, SPHS 5060/5065, or a grade of C in two or more enrollments of SPHS 6010 through SPHS 6090;
c. a grade of C in an academic course and a grade of NP in clinical practicum, SPHS 5060/5065, or a grade of C in SPHS 6010 through SPHS 6090;
d. unsatisfactory defense of a thesis; and
e. failure to pass the comprehensive examination after three attempts within a 12-month period.
6. Students may appeal any decision made upon the basis of these department policies. Such an appeal should be made in writing to the chair of the department. Appeals will be considered by the department according to the procedures set forth in the Student Guide and the Faculty Handbook of the university.
All Courses of Instruction are located in one section at the back of this catalog.
The “Course and Subject Guide,” found in the Courses of Instruction section of this book, serves as a table of contents and provides quick access to subject areas and prefixes.
Date of initial release: July 1, 2009 — Copyright © 2008 University of North Texas
Page updated:
February 23, 2010
— Comments or corrections: catalog@unt.edu
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