Judy Montgomery, CSD Program Director

Judy Montgomery, CSD Program Director

The College of Educational Studies’ Communications Sciences and Disorders Program (CSD) has attained initial, full accreditation status for five years from the national Council of Academic Accreditation (CAA) of the American Speech Language Hearing Association.  This critical milestone recognizes program excellence, and enables our graduates to apply for their International Certification of Clinical Competence (CCC) in joining the profession of speech language pathology. 

Launched in the fall of 2009, the Chapman University program is the first in California to be granted new accreditation in over 30 years!  There are 17 programs in the state. The job market is very good for speech language pathologists in both educational and medical settings, as the SLP profession is rated 14th in the nation by US News and World Report (2012).  The CSD program has graduated 87 new speech pathologists in the last 3 years and, everyone of them is currently employed not only in California, but also in 8 other states.

“National accreditation attracts applicants from across the country, enriching our 30-person cohort program every year,” according to Dr. Judy Montgomery, Program Director. Dr. Montgomery also indicated, “Alumni of the program work in many settings. They have attributed their employment satisfaction to changes in healthcare delivery, persons living longer and desiring greater communication support services, school children requiring intervention to reach common core state standards, astonishing technology such as cochlear implants, and the lure of specialty private practices for an ever-increasing range of speech language and hearing needs in the population.”

In addition, Montgomery recently presented two papers at the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatircs (IALP) Congress in Torino, Italy in late August, 2013.  She also served as an ASHA delegate to the IALP General Assembly as well as Chair of the Alternative/Augmentative Communication (AAC) Committee.