Do you love helping others? Have you always been interested in the science behind communication? Do you want to pursue a path that will allow you to help children and adults with hearing and speech problems? If so, you might be the perfect candidate for Buffalo State’s Speech-Language Pathology Program. As a speech-language pathologist, you would be an expert in the fields of hearing, speaking, swallowing, and communicating. Though you would be able to choose from a wide variety of career paths, your main focus would be helping people understand others and make themselves understood.
The process of forming a thought in the brain and converting it into verbal form is incredibly complex. It takes hundreds of muscles in the neurological system to make such a process possible. Though the majority of people are able to master the process in early childhood, millions of children, teenagers, and adults struggle with it throughout their lives. These individuals face enormous hurdles when it comes to developing strong personal relationships, achieving academic success, and advancing in the workplace.
As a speech pathology professional, you would be responsible for helping people overcome all these challenges and successfully navigate their daily lives.
What often draws students to SLP is the opportunity to work with people on a one-to-one basis in a specialized and important life domain—communication. Students who gravitate to SLP tend to be attracted to communication in all of its forms: debate, creative writing, reading, and theater/musical performance. Our undergraduate SLP program gives students a strong foundation in normal acquisition of speech, language, and hearing, and provides an introduction to the field of communication sciences and disorders and gives them the necessary prerequisite courses for graduate study. The master's degree is required for the initial teaching certificate, the license to practice speech-language pathology, and for the Certificate of Clinical Competence (CCC) awarded by the American Speech-Language Hearing Association.
Many schools offer speech-language pathology programs. What makes ours so special? We’re glad you asked. At Buffalo State, SLP undergraduates benefit from:
Buffalo State is committed to empowering students for their futures both inside and outside of the classroom. Below are just a few clubs, organizations that would interest SLP students:
Research and Internship Opportunities
Undergraduate students are highly encouraged to pursue and participate in faculty research opportunities.
Our students begin their applied clinical practicum experience in their first semester and are enrolled in clinical coursework in every subsequent semester, both in our active and highly regarded on-site clinic and in our community-partner externship sites.
A speech pathology professional is part scientist, part teacher, part doctor, and part therapist. As a result, there are countless career opportunities for those who pursue the SLP program. As a SLP professional, you might:
As our society begins to understand more and more about speech and swallowing disorders, increased opportunities are opening up. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, SLP jobs are expected to grow by 25 percent by 2018. This means that in terms of career options, the sky is the limit—you can choose a combination of the aforementioned options, or forge your own path.
It is also worth noting that although most SLP undergraduate students go on to pursue a master’s degree so that they can become a licensed and certified SLP, some students opt to pursue other careers, usually in the areas of science, sociology, communication, or education. These students find that the bachelor of science degree in speech-language pathology prepares them for fields where such skills are desirable, such as
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