Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., offers a master of science degree in deaf education through the school of medicine. The program emphasizes hands-on experience and training with a family-centered approach, placing the needs of the family and the children at the center of its concerns. Areas of particular emphasis in the program include early intervention and the development of social skills in addition to the more traditional concerns of language and speech pathology. The program is highly selective, admitting only about 10 applicants per year; this allows for a student to teacher ratio of just 2-to-1. The program is designed to last two years and emphasizes coursework in areas such as anatomy and physiology of speech, clinical audiology, acoustical phonetics and speech perception, introduction to manual communication, early intervention and the psychosocial and educational foundations of deafness.
Washington University School of Medicine
Program in Audiology and Communication Sciences
660 S. Euclid Ave.
Campus Box 8042
St. Louis, MO 63110
314-747-0104
pacs.wustl.edu
A second option for a master's degree in deaf education is the master of science program at Canisius College. Working in collaboration with St. Mary's School for the Deaf, students in the nationally recognized Canisius program gain hands-on experience while completing their program over a span of two academic school years. Students who complete the program receive teaching certification from the state of New York and the Council on the Education of the Deaf. Areas of study covered by the program include American sign language, speech and hearing science, audiology and assistive services, language theories and strategies, methods of teaching literacy for the deaf, psychology and counseling of deaf and hearing impaired students and curriculum methods for teaching deaf students.
Canisius College
2001 Main Street
Buffalo, NY 14208
716-888-2545
canisius.edu
Michigan State University's College of Education, considered by some to be among the top education programs in the nation, has a special education program designed to train teachers to fulfill a variety of roles in the school system. Deaf education is among those roles. The master of arts degree offered at MSU is a 30-credit-hour program that requires hands-on experience through student teaching, resulting in students receiving an endorsement from the state of Michigan. As part of the special-education program, students are required to take core courses in the areas of policy analysis and trends in special education, critical issues in special education, multicultural issues in special education, academic issues for at-risk students and educational perspectives on low-incidence populations.
Michigan State University
College of Education
118 Erickson Hall
East Lansing, MI 48823
517-355-1825
educ.msu.edu