Clinical Opportunities

From your first semester at SUNY Plattsburgh, you’ll start building the practical skills you need for careers in the communication sciences, including speech-language pathology and audiology. Our Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD) program integrates hands-on clinical work with your coursework, giving you meaningful experience in assessment and treatment under the guidance of certified clinical supervisors.

Build Skills Through Real Clinical Practice

Undergraduate and graduate students take part in clinical practicums that connect what you learn in class to the work you’ll do in the field. Early on, you’ll observe, plan and deliver sessions that help you grow your confidence as a developing clinician.

Our student clinicians work directly with exceptional clients and community partners. Providing free clinical services is often one of the most rewarding parts of our students’ experience — a chance to learn while giving back.

Student clinician and clinical educator engage preschool client with various activities

Image left: Clinical educator, Erica Cook, plays with child in sensory bin. Image right: Student clinician Julia engages preschool child with picture cards.

These clinical opportunities will help you earn the 400 clinical clock hours required for a master’s degree, state licensure and ASHA certification.

Resources & Support

As a student clinician, you will have access to:

A library of games, books, and craft materials
A comprehensive assessment library
Therapy materials for children, teens and adults
Two private workrooms for planning, research and preparation
Clinical software and apps to support assessment and treatment
Dedicated clinical iPads for client use

Learn more about clinical opportunities

On-Site Clinic — SUNY Plattsburgh Speech & Hearing Center
You will work in our clinic, supervised by the same professors that teach you in the classroom. This means that there is continuity between your academic and clinical learning, which helps you to apply your knowledge from the classroom into your clinical work.

Our clinic caters to a wide range of client groups, both adult and pediatric, in a variety of service delivery models.
- Individualized (one-on-one) sessions with clients across the lifespan
- Preschool/Early Intervention play groups
- School-age language and articulation groups
- Traumatic brain injury groups
- SPEAK OUT!® Therapy
- Aphasia groups (telepractice and in-person)
- Aphasia choir
- Community preschool and adult screenings
- Audiology clinical experience
- Gender spectrum voice clinic
- Evaluation teams
- Hospital rotations
Our on-site clinic offers students an opportunity to gain experience in each range of practice. That is, speech, language, swallowing, voice, hearing, alternative and augmentative communication, accent reduction and stuttering.

More information about the Speech & Hearing Center
Externship Opportunities

Your final semester will be spent off campus on your externship placement. This is where you will learn to take on a clinical caseload to prepare you for working life beyond graduation. We place our students all over the USA and even in Canada!

Students learning to repair hearing aid devices and trialing a pneumatic compression device for head and neck in clinic.

Image left: A student repairs a hearing aid. Image right: Students are trialing a pneumatic compression device for head and neck.