speech clinician demonstrating throat technique to 5-year-old girl

Speech & Hearing Science

Promote effective communication, a human right, through research and clinical practice. Prepare for a career that improves lives.

About

The Department of Speech and Hearing Science is committed to further understanding of the entire spectrum of communication.

The undergraduate curriculum offers a broad background in the theoretical, basic, and applied aspects of biological, behavioral, linguistic, and social foundations of human communication. The graduate program focuses on research and clinical education in communication, its disabilities, and the treatment and prevention of communicative disabilities. And our faculty work to develop methods to prevent, identify, assess, and treat disabilities of human communication.

Our Mission

Mission Statement: Enhancing communication across the lifespan by integrating research and clinical practice from the biological, behavioral, and social sciences.

Our Vision

Serve as a global leader for interdisciplinary research, education, clinical practice, and public engagement in human communication and its disabilities across the lifespan.

Our Strategic Plan

View the department's strategic plan for 2024-2028.

Our Research Focus

Our professors investigate health, development, and aging, and disability related to speech, language, deglutition, and hearing, and aim to develop new ways to assess, prevent and treat communication disabilities. Research in the department is supported by grants from leading funding agencies including the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Department of Education, and Department of Defense.

Our History

Established in 1973 within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Department of Speech and Hearing Science went through several name changes before finally becoming part of the College of Applied Health Sciences in 1991.

The University of Illinois Speech Clinic began as an outreach program in a janitor’s mop closet in Lincoln Hall in 1938. Dr. Severina Nelson could find no other space to conduct her speech therapy. Two years later, with the title of director of the speech clinic and a $2,000 grant, Dr. Nelson moved the clinic to a spacious new office in Gregory Hall. The Speech and Hearing Clinic was later housed in the Lorado Taft House where it remained until it moved to its present building in 1975. In 2007, the Speech-Language Pathology Clinic moved to a new, expanded, state-of-the-art facility located in Research Park. The Audiology Clinic co-located with the Speech-Language Pathology Clinic in 2018.

Our Bylaws

Our bylaws can be found here.