If you want to give back to your community and at the same time pursue a great career, the field of Speech-Language Pathology is for you! We in the Department of Communication Disorders at NMSU are here to support you on your way to obtain a Master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology. The Master of Arts degree in Communication Disorders with a specialization in Speech-Language Pathology from our program meets the educational requirements for certification by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) as well as the educational requirements for state licensure in all US states.
If you enter our graduate program as full-time student with an undergraduate degree in Communication Disorders, you can expect to complete the program in two years (including the summer between the two years). You will complete the academic and clinical coursework outlined in the Graduate Curriculum under the traditional program requirements. As part of your clinical practicum in our program, you will have the opportunity to work with clients across the lifespan with communication and feeding and swallowing disorders. During your first year, you will serve clients in our on-campus Edgar R. Garrett Speech and Hearing Center. During your second year, you will be placed in externship sites in our culturally and linguistically diverse area.
Students who cannot commit to enrolling in our program full-time have the option to complete our program as part-time student in three years.
For students interested in serving neurodiverse clients, we offer the opportunity to obtain the Graduate Certificate in Autism Spectrum Disorders as well as clinical opportunities and graduate assisantships in our Papen-Aprendamos Autism Diagnostic Center.
If you would like to become a Speech-Language Pathologist but you completed an undergraduate degree in a different field, you have the option to apply to our graduate leveling program. As a student in our leveling program, you will complete one year of coursework before transitioning into our traditional two-year program. In other words, as a leveling student, it will take you three years to obtain the Master of Arts degree in Communication Disorders with a specialization in Speech-Language Pathology from our program.
