Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders
Boilerplate for grant proposals
The Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders is one of five academic
units within the College of Education and Human Sciences at West Virginia
University. The CSD Department offers a pre-professional Bachelor of Science (B.S.)
program in Speech Pathology and Audiology, a professional Master of Science (M.S.)
program in Speech-Language Pathology, a professional Doctor of Audiology (Au.D.)
program, and a post-professional Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) program in
Communication Sciences and Disorders. CSD’s newest program, the Ph.D., is
specifically designed for expert clinicians who seek a leadership role as a researcher
and scholar within the discipline. Both of the professional graduate programs are
accredited by the Council on Academic Accreditation in Audiology and SpeechLanguage Pathology (CAA) of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
The pre-professional Bachelor of Science program in speech pathology and
audiology enrolls 90 students, whereas the Master of Science program in speechlanguage pathology enrolls approximately 26 students annually. The Doctor of
Audiology program typically admits 6 students each year, and the Ph.D. program in
Communication Sciences and Disorders admits students who wish to pursue a
career as a teacher-scholar in the discipline.
The department maintains two professional clinics, the Hearing Clinic and the
Speech Clinic – both in Allen Hall. Individual as well as group therapy is offered each
semester to meet the needs of the clients in the Speech Clinic, which is open Monday
through Friday, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., with the services of a fully certified supervisory staff.
Therapy sessions are conducted in nine treatment rooms, each of which is equipped
with a two-way mirror and monitoring system. The clinic also conducts
augmentative communication evaluations as part of its services. There is a video
monitoring system and fully equipped laboratory for acoustic and physiologic study
of speech disorders. The Hearing Clinic is equipped to provide complete diagnostic
and rehabilitative services. Patients are seen at the Center on a referral basis
Monday through Friday. Students who register for audiology practicum are
provided opportunities to gain varied experience in keeping with their interests and
abilities. Students may also acquire valuable clinical experiences at WVU’s Ruby
Memorial Hospital Speech Clinic in the Department of Rehabilitation. Therapy and
diagnostics for both in-patients and out-patients are conducted under the
supervision of fully certified staff. In addition to these services and facilities, the
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders maintains formal
relationships with several off-campus clinical settings and externship sites in which
students may obtain clinical hours working with a wide range of individuals having
communication disorders.
The Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders supports several
productive research laboratories. These include the Speech and Hearing Lab,
devoted to the study of normal and abnormal speech and voice production,
transmission, and perception. The Language and Literacy Lab explores the
processes involved in language and reading and the development of improved
diagnostic and treatment approaches for children with language and reading
impairments. A variety of experimental techniques are employed within the lab in
order to investigate topics such as phonological knowledge and orthographic
processing. The Laboratory for Fluency Disorders houses the International Project
on Attitudes Toward Human Attributes, or IPATHA. This laboratory provides space
and equipment related to all phases of carrying out research in the fluency disorders
of stuttering and cluttering, i.e., planning, data collection, data reduction, writing,
and data storage. The Department also supports the Collaborative Assistive
Technology Education (CATE) Lab devoted to educating students and professionals
on how to select and use a wide range of mainstream and specialized devices to
support individuals with disabilities in the context of educational and clinical
interventions.
The M.S. program in Speech-Language Pathology and the Au.D. program have both
been recently reaccredited by the Council on Academic Accreditation in Audiology
and Speech-Language Pathology (CAA) of the American Speech-Language Hearing
Association for a full 8-year cycle ending June, 2021.
CSD faculty members have access to West Virginia University’s five library facilities
(Downtown Library Complex, Evansdale Library, Health Sciences Library, Law
Library, and Libraries Depository) that contain nearly 1.9 million volumes, 229
electronic databases and more than 45,000 online full-text journals, with access to
36 million volumes through a book-sharing consortium. Campus computing services
support faculty research and instruction, and there are myriad opportunities for
special education faculty to collaborate with other faculty members across 15
colleges and schools, including the Eberly College of Arts and Science, College of
Creative Arts, College of Law, School of Medicine, and School of Public Health, among
others.