Program Description

The master of science in speech-language pathology (M.S.S.L.P.) holds its classes on the Newark campus of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, within the division of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences. This program is a 66-credit, entry-level program that prepares students to prevent, evaluate, diagnose, and treat speech, language communication, and swallowing disorders.

The program began admitting 20 students per year beginning with the fall 2020 cohort. Future cohort class sizes are projected to increase to 30 or more as the program grows. This program, which will be completed over five consecutive semesters (two years), emphasizes service delivery for multi-ethnic, socially diverse populations--including dialectal speakers of English and bilingual/multilingual individuals--with speech, language, communication, and swallowing disorders within an interdisciplinary health care context. All students receive didactic content and clinical experiences with multi-ethnic, socially diverse populations. Eligible students who meet additional requirements will have the option of completing the Bilingual Competency Recognition (BCR). Additional requirements for BCR include: (1) an advanced-low placement or higher on the language proficiency tests (oral and written) in English and the other language in which the student is proficient (administered by Language Testing International); and (2) completion of one of the external clinical practica with bilingual clients. At this time, due to the clinical practicum requirement only being available in Spanish, the BCR will be limited to Spanish-English bilingual students. As the M.S.S.L.P. grows, opportunities for clinical practica in other languages will be added to the BCR as they become available. With a curricular emphasis on interprofessional services for communicatively impaired ethnically diverse populations, our M.S.S.L.P. program is expected to train students to work with both child and adult caseloads in our complex multidisciplinary health care settings serving multi-ethnic communities.

This program will prepare students to provide contemporary speech, language, and communicative services to a diverse clinical population within the context of interprofessional practice. There will be three practica experiences at the Rutgers University Speech-Language Pathology Clinic and two full-time practica in an off-campus clinical setting. One full-time practica will be in a pediatric setting and one in an adult setting. The off-campus clinical experiences will be offered in a variety of clinical settings (e.g., public/private school, hospital, skilled nursing facilities, early intervention program, etc.).