Bilingual Certificate

Co-Directors:

Chelsea Cornejo, M.S. CCC-SLP, Clinical Assistant Professor

Dr. Stephanie Grasso, PhD, CCC-SLP, Assistant Professor

Program Description:

UT SLHS offers a Bilingual certificate (with an emphasis on Spanish/English bilingual populations) to students at the MSSLHS level in Speech Language Pathology to foster specialized academic and clinical training, and competitive certification, specific to serve bilingual individuals with communication disorders. Academic support to acquire knowledge of bilingual language development, manifestation of disorders in bilingual populations, and culturally and linguistically appropriate service provision is provided through specialized coursework and experiential learning opportunities.

Please note: The Bilingual certificate program requirements will be modified for incoming cohorts with specialized coursework opportunities.

Specialization Requirements:

1. Learn about the certificate during the SLHS New Graduate Student Orientation. Declare your interest by submitting an application survey and bilingualism questionnaire due by the first day of class.
2. Complete six credits of specialized coursework selected from the following:
   1. ​​​​​SLH 391C Cultural and Linguistic Diversity - Survey current issues in provision of speech-language pathology services to children from bilingual backgrounds and adapting procedures to meet the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse families.
   2. In or out of department upper division or graduate elective with multicultural or bilingual focus.
3. Complete 50 hours of experience with a bilingual focus. These may be obtained via formal courses (i.e., clinical practicums, externships), or through structured experiences with direct client contact that are approved by the directors.
   1. Note that if you are a Spanish-English bilingual speaker, these 50 hours are required in Spanish.
   2. If you are not a Spanish-English bilingual speaker, you will gain 50 hours working with bilingual populations in English via collaborative models with your supervisor, peers, and the individual’s support network.
4. If you are a Spanish-English bilingual speaker, advanced-mid-level proficiency in Spanish is required based on self-report questionnaire. The directors or a student in the certificate may request proficiency check-ins, as needed. If you are not a Spanish-English bilingual speaker, all of the other requirements are required for the bilingual experience.

Please Note:

• The Bilingual certificate requires 3 additional credits relative that required by the MSSLHS program.
• Students in the MSSLHS thesis track who want to complete the Bilingual certificate must take an additional six credits in order to satisfy the certificate requirements.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Who can apply?  Anyone accepted into the MSSLHS program can elect the Bilingual certificate option.

Will I provide clinical services in another language? The level of involvement in provision of services in Spanish is provided at a level that is appropriate to the trainee’s language proficiency.  At this time, we cannot guarantee the availability of clients or supervisors for other language pairs.