Courses in Communication Sciences & Disorders

American Sign Language

Catalog says

“This course concentrates on an introduction to American Sign Language and American deaf culture. Students are introduced to commonly used signs and basic rules of grammar. The course also explores information related to the deaf community, interaction between deaf and hearing people, and deaf education. Fulfills the General Education World Languages requirement.”

Students say

“Taking sign language here at Emerson as a Communication Disorders major has been pretty life-changing. My teacher, Nancy Vincent, is deaf, like all of the other professors who teach ASL. That means that learning in the class is a little different: it's learning by doing. During class, we don't speak; in fact, everything is strictly visual, even on the first day of class. I can't think of a better way to understand a language than to immerse yourself into it entirely. I leave the classroom feeling inspired and confident in my abilities to communicate.”
– Amanda Quimby

Phonetics

Catalog says

"Students study clinical phonetics including an overview of linguistic phonetics, speech production, and acoustic phonetics. Students learn the discrimination skills needed to analyze and transcribe speech sounds (vowels, diphthongs, and consonants) using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Students also learn to indicate allophonic variations of speech sounds and prosodic characteristics of speech using diacritics. The relevance of course content to clinical and other applications is discussed as students learn the use of IPA to describe the speech of individuals with communicative impairments and different social dialects and accents."

Students say

"The Phonetics class at Emerson is not only a requirement for Communication Disorders majors, but was also one of my favorite classes here. We learned all about the phonetic alphabet and articulations as well as touching on some childhood articulation development. We were able to practice real-life listening skills by listening to tapes of different speech disorders and then describing the problems we heard. The teacher was great and constantly told anecdotes and made personal references for us to better understand the material. The fact that the class itself was no more than 16 people made for an intimate environment where everyone felt comfortable asking questions, and we could learn at our own rate. Overall, my phonetics class at Emerson was not only a learning experience, it was a life experience."
– Karissa Drumm