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Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Sciences & Disorders

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Choose Saint Rose for Your Bachelor's Degree in Communication Sciences & Disorders

Ready to help others find their voice? If you aspire to help people overcome everyday challenges in communication and swallowing, The College of Saint Rose’s Bachelor of Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD) program offers a path to a rewarding career as a speech-language pathologist (SLP), also known as a speech therapist.

SLPs work with a variety of clients – infants with feeding difficulties, students with dyslexia, patients recovering from traumatic brain injuries or strokes, business executives managing stuttering issues, and transgender individuals learning to modulate their tone and pitch.

Considering the range of client specializations and new challenges that individuals face every day, earning a speech pathology bachelor’s degree can be an excellent investment in a fulfilling future career.

Students in Saint Rose’s speech pathology bachelor’s degree program develop the foundational skills to serve children and adults with speech, language, or hearing disabilities and ultimately become highly competitive candidates for CSD graduate studies. A graduate degree is required to become a licensed, certified SLP.

Start on Your Path to Becoming a Speech-Language Pathologist

Students who choose to pursue a graduate degree and licensure can expect to enter a career that’s in high demand.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, demand for SLPs is expected to grow by 29% between 2020 and 2030, which is much faster than the average for all professions and represents more than 45,000 new jobs during that time.

The average salary for SLPs in New York is $98,850, which is among the highest in the country in the field.

Students who earn a speech pathology bachelor’s degree but choose not to pursue graduate-level education may have plenty of career opportunities, but largely at the assistant level.

Graduates of Saint Rose’s communication sciences and disorders degree program are well-qualified to find employment as SLP assistants, audiologist assistants, and various other types of aides in the healthcare field. Graduates of this program may also look outside the field for employment and pursue satisfying careers in marketing, public relations, or other fields that demand excellent communication skills.

Accelerated Dual-Degree Program

If you’re considering a BS in Communication Sciences and Disorders, you may qualify for Saint Rose’s accelerated dual-degree (BS/MSEd) program, which offers significant savings of time and money as well as automatic acceptance into Saint Rose’s competitive CSD graduate program.

Program Highlights

  • Enjoy small class sizes and approachable faculty with broad and diverse clinical experience and a wide range of expertise. And our faculty and clinic supervisors have an open-door policy. They’re here to help you.
  • Theory in Action learning is important at Saint Rose. For CSD students, this means clinical observations and activities are part of your courses. And you don’t have to wait until grad school for those hands-on experiences.
  • Benefit from our philosophy of clinical service delivery, with the goal of serving individuals in the most effective and humane manner possible.
  • Join a diverse, supportive community of aspiring CSD professionals.
  • Students can do clinical experiences as undergraduates because our curriculum has so much depth. Study normal communication – the scientific basis of speech, language, and hearing, as well as communication disorders. But also spend more time focusing on specific disorders than other programs.
  • Participate in Saint Rose’s chapter of the national Student Speech-Language-Hearing Association (NSSLHA) to stay abreast of trends and events in the field and develop your career potential.
  • A required community involvement course gets are students ready for clinical experiences by exposing them to the diverse community around us, from working with senior citizens to those living in poverty. And it’s another way to help the dear neighbor.
  • Become a competitive candidate for Saint Rose’s highly regarded CSD graduate program.
  • Our alumni are ready to work in any area of CSD – from hospitals to schools. And because we’re part of the prestigious Thelma P. Lally School of Education, our connections with school districts are strong for those aspiring to work with P-12 students.

All of my professors have extensive experience in the field and have taught me more than I could have asked for.

I’ve learned that you can pass every test and receive every degree, but you won’t be successful in a field like this if you don’t love what you do and have a passion for helping every person you work with.:

Shannon Linquist '21, Communication Sciences & Disorders

Shannon Linquist ’21

B.S. Communication Sciences & Disorders

At Saint Rose, the CSD professors were all practicing clinicians. They teach you in class, and then you would watch them in their evaluation with a client. You learn how to handle a disruptive client, or a child. They're not only teaching; they're demonstrating what they just taught you.

At many other schools, the two things are separate. Ten years after graduating, I still talk to my old CSD professors. You always feel like you're part of the family."

Jessica Forbes, Ph.D., G'11

Post doctoral research fellow at University of Florida

Saint Rose really brought home the value of being a really good person. These students want us to be creative, and want us to be resourceful, and want us to be able to change really quickly and come up with something fun. They really, at the end of the day, just want to be loved.

I think that all those values were woven through our educational classes at Saint Rose and will be with us forever."

Katie Giglio G’05 and Anna Giardenelli G’04 Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs) for the Guilderland School District, Guilderland, New York

Anna Giardenelli G'04

Speech Language Pathologist, Guilderland School District, Guilderland, New York

Exceptional Faculty

Experienced, knowledgeable practitioners with a passion for teaching

Our CSD faculty combine cutting-edge theory with hands-on practice to provide you with a rich, fulfilling learning experience. While they’re experts in the field, they’re also approachable, sympathetic, and dedicated to helping you achieve your goals. Visit our full faculty page to learn about each faculty member you’ll meet at Saint Rose.

Meet Our Faculty
Deirdre Muldoon

Deirdre Muldoon, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, BCBA-D Associate Professor, Communication Sciences and Disorders

Listen to Professors in Action

Fun With Food: A Positive Approach to Behavioral Feeding Disorders

Check out this episode of the Speechie Side Up podcast featuring Associate Professor Deirdre Muldoon, discussing behavior feeding difficulties.

Listen Now

Curriculum

Bachelor’s Program Overview

The Saint Rose CSD program, comprising 122 credit hours, combines a liberal-arts and sciences education with a rigorous pre-professional, clinical education. You’ll study speech, hearing, and swallowing disorders, language development, research methods, voice disorders, and speech-language-hearing programs in schools, among other topics.

We have built a unique and comprehensive sequence of clinical field experiences into the curriculum, including:

  • In Clinical Methods and Supervised Observation, complete 25 hours of observation of therapy and diagnostic sessions under the supervision of an ASHA-certified speech-language pathologist
  • In the Supervised Clinical Practicum in your final year, take part in a clinical experience that includes supervised assessment and treatment of clients with speech and language problems as well as typical communication development, and share your clinical experiences with peers in a required seminar

Upon successful completion of our undergraduate CSD program, you will:

  • Be prepared for graduate studies in CSD or related disciplines
  • Understand basic human communication and swallowing processes
  • Understand typical, disordered, delayed, and different communication systems and behaviors, within a framework of respect for cultural diversity
  • Demonstrate basic clinical skills that are consistent with evidence-based practice (EBP)
  • Assimilate classroom instruction and clinical decision-making in preparation for clinical work
  • Understand professional issues that face practitioners in the communication sciences and disorders
  • Demonstrate professional attributes consistent with the department’s clinical philosophy

Frequently Asked Questions

More questions about our program? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions.

Accelerated B.S./M.S. Ed. Program

Accelerate your career with the Saint Rose dual degree program in CSD.

Saint Rose’s new, accelerated bachelor’s/master’s degree program allows you to count some of your graduate course credits toward both your bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

  • Save time and money: Because accelerated programs allow students to apply 12 credits of graduate coursework to both their undergraduate and graduate degrees, this may significantly reduce the cost of their graduate study
  • You shorten your undergraduate study by one semester
  • Enjoy automatic acceptance into our competitive master’s program, if you meet the requirements for remaining in the program

Credit requirements and schedule

If accepted into this program, you’ll take all CSD classes required in our traditional program, and must meet all liberal-arts core requirements as well as all teacher-certification requirements. The credit requirements and timing are as follows:

  • Undergraduate portion: 122 credit hours, which may be completed in 3.5 years (excluding summers)
  • Graduate portion: 56 credit hours, typically completed in 5 to 6 additional semesters (including summers)

Approval for Fall 2024 semester

The Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders has received approval to offer this option to qualified incoming high-school seniors, incoming transfer students, and current students.

For specific information about our master’s program in CSD, please refer to our program page.

Application Requirements

  • Score of 1200 (out of 1600) on the SATs or 28 on the ACTs. *
  • Average of 90 in both English and Science courses*
  • At least one letter of recommendation from a teacher who can comment on your academic performance and potential for success in an advanced program.
  • Successful interview and writing sample with a member of the CSD department

*COVID may impede candidates’ ability to provide test scores and grades

  • A minimum of 45 credits completed at another institution(s)
  • Minimum overall GPA of 3.2 or at least 3.2 in the last 30 credits taken
  • Letter of recommendation from a faculty member (from either Saint Rose or the institution from which the student transferred) who can comment on your academic performance and potential for success in an advanced program.
  • Successful completion of an interview and a spontaneous writing sample
  • A grade of B+ of better in the following courses taken during the freshman and sophomore years: CSD 100,109, 204, 219, 240, 225, 345
  • Minimum overall GPA of 3.25
  • Successful completion of an interview and spontaneous writing sample
  • Department endorsement
  • No ongoing PQA concerns

Career Outlook

communication sciences disorders therapist working with patientLocated in the heart of New York’s Capital District, Saint Rose is minutes away from numerous research and teaching hospitals, healthcare facilities, and private and public schools, and offers a wealth of educational and practice opportunities for CSD students, both on and off campus. To the community, the department of Communication Sciences & Disorders is well known as a reliable source of excellent SLP, (speech therapist), talent, as well as a valuable resource of helpful SLPs and swallowing advice and services:

Contact Us Now

Of course, if you have any questions, please reach out. We’re here to help.

Department Chairs
Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders
School of Education
1009 Madison Avenue
Albany, NY 12203

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