Department of Speech-Language Pathology & Audiology
Announcement: Hunter College has waived application fees for the MS program in Speech-Language Pathology this spring 2025 admissions cycle. Applications are due February 1, 2025. Please contact the department chair, Dr. Michelle MacRoy-Higgins, PhD, for any and all admissions questions.
Become a Speech-Language Pathologist or an Audiologist
and Reward Yourself with a Career that Helps OthersSpeech-Language Career Video - click here to know more!
Audiologists Career Video - click here to know more!
What's it like being an audiologist or speech-language pathologist? Look at this: Become an Audiologist or Speech-Language Pathologist and Reward Yourself with a Career that Helps Others.
A Day in the Life of a NYC speech pathologist
If you're looking at the possibility of a career as a school-based speech-language pathologist, check out this video from the NYC Department of Education: A day in the life of a New York City speech pathologist
Feel free to download our brochure by clicking here: program brochure
Drs. Nancy Eng and Stanley Chen, along with recent Hunter College SLPA graduates Lauren Levy and Zarina Rakhmanova, presented at the 49th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, Friday, November 8, 2024. Their talk, titled "Lexical Tone Sensitivity in Blind, Non-Tone Language Speakers," investigated whether blind, monolingual English speakers show heightened sensitivity to lexical tone compared to their sighted counterparts.
Abstract: This study evaluated the ability of blind, non-tone language speakers to attend to lexical tone. Previous research suggests that blind individuals possess superior auditory processing skills and enhanced verbal memory, often outperforming sighted people in pitch discrimination, phoneme identification, rapid speech processing, and recall of letter and word sequences. Based on these findings, we hypothesized that English-speaking, blind individuals would exhibit greater sensitivity to pitch contours in lexical access compared to sighted individuals. Twelve monolingual English speakers with no exposure to tone languages participated in the study—six blind and six sighted. Participants completed word-learning and sentence-verification tasks to assess attention to lexical tone. Results revealed that blind participants were significantly more attuned to lexical tones than their sighted counterparts. Additionally, the blind group’s response accuracy increased gradually over time, a trend not observed in the sighted group. These findings suggest that sensory compensation in blind individuals may extend to the processing and learning of unfamiliar linguistic features, providing new insights into cross-modal sensory adaptation in language processing.
Welcome to the Department of Speech-Language Pathology & Audiology
These pages of the department's website will give you information about our program and the Hunter College Center for Communication Disorders.
Here, you will find answers to your questions about our applying to our program our full time MS degree program.
After you've gathered information, jot down your questions and feel free to make an appointment for our Virtual Office Hour, which takes place on the first Wednesday of every month from 7:00-8:00 p.m.
After you've gathered information, jot down your questions and feel free to make an appointment for our Virtual Office Hour, which takes place on the first Wednesday of every month from 7:00-8:00 p.m.
We will be holding a Prospective Student Information session via Zoom on Wednesday, October 30th from 6:00-7:00 p.m. You must contact the department's office to get the Zoom link: slpa@hunter.cuny.edu.
The next Virtual Office Hour will be on Wednesday, November 6th from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
The following are the dates for the remainder of Fall '24 Virtual Office Hour:
December 4 (Wednesday) from 7-8:00 p.m.
Special pre-admissions office hour session will be Wednesday January 8, 2025 at 7:00 p.m.
To make an appointment for a Virtual Office Hour, email here: slpa@hunter.cuny.edu
Hunter College's Department of Speech-Language Pathology & Audioliogy offers prerequisite courses in Speech-Language Pathology. The courses are offered annually:
Summer session
- Introduction to Speech-Language Pathology (COMSC 620)
- Introduction to Audiology (COMSC 640)
Fall semester
- Introduction to Language Science (COMSC 604)
- Speech and Its Production - Anatomy & Physiology of the Speech and Hearing Mechanisms (COMCS 615)
Spring Semester
- Phonetics of American English (COMSC 607)
The department and its clinic are housed at the Brookdale Health Sciences campus of Hunter College - City University of New York (CUNY), located at 425 East 25th Street, New York, NY (between the FDR Drive and First Avenue). Speech-language pathology and audiology are disciplines concerned with communication processes of all people across the lifespan. A master's degree is the entry level credential for speech-language pathology; in audiology, the entry level degree is at the doctoral level.
Hunter College is accredited by Middle States Commission on Higher Education. For verification of this credential, please review this page at the Middle State Website: Hunter College - Middle States
The master's of science (MS) education program in speech-language pathology at Hunter College CUNY is accredited by the Council on Academic Accreditation (CAA) in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology
Address: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2200 Research Boulevard, #310, Rockville, MD 20850
Phone: 800-498-2071 or 301-296-5700
Please clinic here for the CAA's program list: CUNY, Hunter College
Student Outcome Data, which relates student program completion rates, national examination pass rates, and employment rates can be found here: About the department
For anyone wishing to explore who we are and what we do, please read about our faculty and clinic.
Strategic Plan Executive Summary
Since the granting of departmental status in 2014, the Department of Speech-Language Pathology & Audiology (thereafter, the Department) has established this plan in concert with the Hunter College Strategic Plan. The college plan served as a guiding document for the Department in order to guide its development as its unique identity grows within the Schools of Nursing and Health Professions within Hunter College and within the City University of New York (CUNY) system.
The Department is housed in the School of the Health Professions. It has full-time facculty members and two part-time support staff. Approximately twenty part-time academic and clinical faculty support the operation of the Department. The Department serves approximately 40-55 graduate students annually.
Summary of Goals
- Establish and promote a rigorous academic and clinical program of study that provides students with skill sets that are consistent with current practice to benefit them in their professional careers;
- Develop a research component of the program that will allow for development of faculty scholarship and to provide students with unique research opportunities thus encouraging them to consider research careers in the areas of speech, language and hearing sciences.
- Enhance current program with periodic adjustments to reflect changes in the field and desires of students;
- Promote the department's status in the professional community on the local and national level by engaging with various clinical and research facilities for collaborative opportunities
The mission of the Department of Speech-Language & Audiology, and, the Hunter College Center for Communication Disorders is:
- to develop professionals who will meet the healthcare and educational needs of the metropolitan New York area through prevention, assessment and management of communication disorders in children, adolescents and adults from culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse populations;
- to provide clinically based research that will advance knowledge of normal and disordered processes of communication across the lifespan;
- to profide educational and clinical services to the College and the metropolitan New York City communities; and,
- to provide leadership in clinical practice to the professons of speech-language pathology and audiology as a whole.
Hunter College's Equal Opportunity and Non-discrimination Policy can be found here: hunter college equal opportunity an non-discminations policy
Click here for Hunter College's Mission Statement