Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences
Bring your compassion and empathy to improve communication and lives
Study speech, language, and hearing, gain clinical skills, and bring your creativity and empathy to improving communication across the age span.
Gain the clinical and research skills to work with people from linguistically and culturally diverse populations across the age span. Help children with disabilities learn to communicate effectively. Help adults with hearing loss communicate effectively at home and at work. Help individuals with dementia and their families cope with debilitating illness. And fulfill your desire to make a profound difference in people’s lives.
At UMass, you’ll join a committed, compassionate community of faculty, staff, students, and alumni who, like you, strive to make a positive impact. Clinical graduate students have access to a variety of training opportunities through our on-campus clinic, the Center for Language, Speech, and Hearing.
Our degree programs offer superb value. Our students go on to work in education, healthcare, private practice, or in research, using advanced skills in areas like:
- American Sign Language
- Patient-Centered Care
- Hearing Technology
- Communication Strategies
- Implementation Science
Explore our programs
Undergraduate
Graduate
Post–Baccalaureate
Post-graduation employment rate
Job growth projections for speech language pathologists through 2031, much faster than average
Research Areas
Pioneer Valley residents with Parkinson's Disease learn vocal training techniques from UMass Amherst speech, language, and hearing sciences graduate students.
Benefits list
Difference maker for children and adults.
Your graduate degree meets the requirements for national certification as a speech-language pathologist (CCC-SLP) or audiologist (CCC-A) and prepares you to help children with autism spectrum disorders, adults with Parkinson’s or stroke recovery, and people of all ages with hearing loss.
Cutting-edge research.
Take part in innovative transdisciplinary research working with faculty whose expertise ranges from aphasia and autism to hearing technology.
Fully accredited.
The MA in Speech-Language Pathology and Doctor of Audiology (AuD) programs are accredited by the Council on Academic Accreditation in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology (CAA) of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA).
Alumni spotlight
In the spotlight
“UMass Amherst is a great place to study audiology because the faculty are very supportive. Any kind of audiology, whether it be hearing aid work, cochlear implant work, or even vestibular work, there’s placement that the department can help facilitate.”
Featured faculty
Nathaniel Whitmal, III
Focus on speech intelligibility; signal processing; hearing aids; cochlear implants; electroacoustics.
Michael Starr
Focus on adult neurogenic communication, gender affirming voice and communication.
Gwyneth Rost
Undergraduate Program Director, Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences
Focus on language development, developmental language disorders, word learning, lexical-semantic organization.
Jill Hoover
Graduate Program Director, Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences
Focus on phonological acquisition and disorders; grammatical acquisition and specific language impairment; language assessment and intervention in children.
Lisa Sommers
Clinical Director, Center for Language, Speech, and Hearing
Focus on speech-language pathology education; Parkinson's disease.
In the news
SPHHS Announces 2024 Research Day Award Winners
The School of Public Health and Health Sciences held its annual Research Day on April 17, 2024, in the Campus Center Auditorium.
Participants Needed for a Study on Listening Experiences
The Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences is looking for persons 65 years old and older for a study about real-life listening difficulties.
SPHHS Students Named 2024 CRF Undergraduate Student Research Award Winners
The Center for Research on Families has selected six SPHHS undergraduate students among its twenty-two 2024 undergraduate student research award winners.
Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences
Preparing clinicians to work with individuals with communication disorders from linguistically and culturally diverse populations across the lifespan.