Speech-Language Pathology Prerequisites

Prerequisite courses must be earned at a regionally accredited college or university within the United States and must have been taken within 5 years of a candidate’s undergraduate degree completion. While a grade of C is minimally required in all prerequisite courses, strong candidates will have earned a B or better. All prerequisites do not need to be completed at time of submitting the CSDCAS application but must be successfully completed before the program begins.

Specific Courses in Communication Sciences and Disorders

• Speech and language development
• Phonetics
• Anatomy and physiology of the speech and hearing mechanism
• Audiology
• Speech and hearing science

Other Prerequisite Courses

All candidates must have completed at least one college course from each of the areas below:

• English Composition
• Statistics
• Biological science (any BIO course except plant biology)
• Physical science (any CHM or PHY course)
• Social or behavioral science (typically this is a PSY course but could be any social science course)

All incoming students are encouraged to complete a minimum of 25 observation hours in the area of speech-language pathology prior to admission to the graduate program. Observation hours may not be more than five years old.

Only time spent observing direct services may be counted. Direct services are defined as time spent providing intervention/therapy services or diagnostic/evaluation services to a patient. Time spent in meetings, rounds, paperwork, or networking may not count toward the 25 hours. Students must only observe therapists who are licensed appropriately by his/her state licensing agency and also certified by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (i.e., must hold a current Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology (CCC-SLP)). These observations can occur in any setting (i.e., schools, nursing homes, hospitals, rehabilitation centers, etc.) and online observation hours from approved sites may be counted. An observation verification form will be required at the time of interview.