Program’s actions louder than words

Steven Barlow, professor and chair of speech-language-hearing and co-director of the Intercampus Program in Communicative Disorders, holds the Actifier, a therapeutic device developed for infants through the program. The speech-language-hearing department at KU is widely recognized nationally as a top program. Aaron Paden/University Relations

KU’s speech-language-hearing program may not be the most widely known department on campus, but in its 57 years it has earned more than its share of national accolades.

“In fact, the graduate component of the program at KU was the very first nationally accredited program in speech-language pathology and audiology by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association,” says Steven Barlow, professor and chair of speech-language-hearing and co-director of the Intercampus Program in Communicative Disorders, citing statistics from U.S. News. “It carries a national ranking of No. 5 in hearing and No. 6 in speech language, out of more than 300 graduate programs in the U.S.”

Students with master’s degrees in speech-language pathology or audiology may go on to work as speech pathologists or audiologists in educational and school systems, hospital-medical centers or rehabilitation settings, or they may use their communication skills in any number of public service, government or corporate fields.

With about 130 undergraduate majors, almost 90 master’s students and 38 full-time doctoral students, the intercampus program represents one of the larger graduate programs at the university, Barlow says.

The program includes more than a dozen active laboratories on the Lawrence and Medical Center campuses, and two comprehensive speech-language-hearing training clinics, including the Schiefelbusch Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic in Haworth Hall.

Strong links between the laboratory and classroom are evident as many undergraduate students gain hands-on experience in laboratory and clinical settings working with faculty and graduate students.

The academic and research curriculum in speech-language-hearing is diverse, with programs including early language development and its disorders, multicultural communication, augmentative and alternative communication, and reading and language.

For more information, visit www.ku.edu/~splh/.