Communication Sciences & Disorders (Graduate Program)

For information regarding the UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM, click here.  

Program Overview

The Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders is nationally recognized for its faculty’s research in a number of areas including: articulation, fluency, language, voice, and swallowing disorders in children and adults, with concentrated areas of expertise in autism, bilingualism, English dialect variation, language, literacy, and augmentative and alternative communication interventions for children, motor speech disorders and cognitive-communicative disorders in adults with acquired neurologic diseases and disorders, stuttering, and voice disorders following laryngeal pathology. Within their particular area of expertise, faculty members study the nature and cause of clinical conditions, design and evaluate assessment tools, and investigate treatment efficacy.

PhD program graduates are in high demand by university faculties across the country and by federal and state health and education agencies seeking well-trained scholars to help guide policy development, service implementation, and program evaluation. Master’s graduates are eligible for national certification as speech-language pathologists once they pass the national certification examination. Speech-language pathologists are in demand nationally.

Administration

Admission

Applications and supporting materials for all graduate study must be submitted through the online application site for the LSU Graduate School. Official transcripts, official test scores, and other materials that come from third-party sources must be mailed to: LSU Office of Graduate Admissions, 114 West David Boyd Hall, Baton Rouge, LA 70803. These paper documents are stored electronically and departments have access to all materials submitted by and/or on behalf of a student applying to graduate study.

Applications for admission are received and evaluated by the department within a month of completion of all required materials. Applicants must adhere to the application deadlines established by the Graduate School.

Students seeking admission must submit satisfactory credentials from previous study, acceptable GRE scores, and three letters of recommendation. International students whose native language is not English must also submit an acceptable TOEFL, IELTS, or PTE score.

Financial Assistance

Financial assistance is available to some students. Support may be available through the student’s home department or other units in the form of research or teaching assistantships. A student should contact his or her home department for more information on available assistantship positions. To ensure consideration for financial aid, all application materials should be submitted in accordance with deadlines (Departmental deadline: February 1) established by the LSU Graduate School.

Graduate Faculty

(check current faculty listings by department here)

Hugh W. Buckingham (EM)
Hyunju Chung (6A) • Phonological development, speech sound disorders in young children, cross-linguistic research
Geoffrey Austin Coalson (M) • Fluency disorders
Neila Donovan (M) • Evidence-based assessment and treatment design for adults with acquired neurologic diseases and disorders
Ellen Susan Duncan (6A) • Neuroimaging and neuromodulation in acquired language disorders
Todd Gibson (M) • Bilingual language development and disorders, interactions between language and cognition, lexical access
Eileen Haebig (6A) • Word Learning and word processing in children with autism spectrum disorder and children with developmental language disorder, event-related brain potentials (ERPs), language profiles
Daphne Ursula Hartzheim (6A) • Autism spectrum disorders, Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), clinicians training, Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) in speech-language pathology
Melda Kunduk (M) • Voice disorders (dysphonia), swallowing disorders (dysphagia), total laryngectomy, paradoxical vocal cord dysfunction, laryngeal high-speed endoscopy, laryngeal videostroboscopy
Janet Norris (M) • Child language and literacy intervention
Janna Oetting (M) • Child language development and disorders, specific language impairment, English dialect variation, speech and language screening and assessment
Julie Schneider (6A) • Child language and brain development, word learning during the school years, parental language input

Programs

• Communication Disorders, M.A.

• Communication Disorders, Ph.D.