DeKalb is an ideal location for a professional doctorate training program. In addition to our state-of-the-art clinic located in the heart of the medical corridor, diverse and accessible external rotations are available across northern Illinois, from Rockford to Chicago. Our students are known locally for high clinical performance even in early placements, and have earned nationally competitive fourth-year externships.
We pride ourselves on providing consistency in our students’ clinical education. Cohorts are assigned to a clinical faculty advisor, who tracks progress through internal and external rotations, and works with each student and their semester supervisors to develop clinical goals and objectives.
During students’ first semester in the program, they are assigned an advanced-level student as a mentor. They shadow their mentors to learn clinical flow and report-writing skills. As their diagnostic education progresses, they may be allowed to assist their mentors.
During the spring and summer semesters of the first year, students are paired with a classmate for appointments at the Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic. Students are encouraged to progress toward independence with basic evaluation skills and hearing aid work. Students may be assigned to rotations through the newborn hearing screening program at Kishwaukee Community Hospital and the clinic’s walk-in hearing aid care program. They may also be assigned to observation/ assistant times for vestibular or electrophysiologic testing.
During the 5-week “intersession” between spring and summer semesters (when there are no classes), first-year students are assigned to several full clinical days each week.
During the fall semester, students see adult and pediatric patients without a classmate partner. They may be assigned to rotations through walk-in hearing aid care, and may have observation/assistant times for vestibular or electrophysiologic testing.
During the spring and summer semesters, students begin to take more active roles in vestibular and electrophysiologic testing as their coursework progresses, and continue to see adult and pediatric patients with their faculty supervisor. During the summer semester, students also begin to rotate through the adult audiologic rehabilitation program.
Students who have mastered the core clinical skill set may be allowed to begin local external rotations during the second year at faculty discretion. Many students are allowed to complete a full-time 5-week rotation at an external site during the intersession. Students are responsible for their own transportation to/from clinical placements.
Third year students who have mastered the core clinical skill set are assigned local external sites for one- or two-day per week rotations. They may continue to develop vestibular and electrophysiologic skills in-house, and continue involvement with the adult audiologic rehabilitation classes.
Students are assessed during the spring of their third year for readiness to attend full-time fourth year externships at local and national placements. During the fourth year, the placement coordinator maintains contact with students and external preceptors. Students may also participate in online discussions and case presentations.
Northern Illinois University’s Doctor of Audiology program boasts a state-of-the-art clinical facility. It is housed within the new Family Health, Wellness and Literacy Center, which also includes the NIU Physical Therapy Clinic. The clinic is well-placed within the DeKalb-Sycamore medical corridor, across the street from the new Kishwaukee Community Hospital, and within blocks of Hauser-Ross Eye Institute and the new DeKalb Clinic medical building, as well as numerous private medical and ancillary care offices.
See more on the Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic.
The clinic is a true community clinic, which employs four full-time clinical faculty members in audiology, and maintains a diverse patient base. The faculty members have clinical interests in newborn screening, birth-to-three evaluation and treatment, adult evaluation and treatment, cerumen management, educational consultation, vestibular/ balance testing, and auditory processing team evaluation.
Because of the diversity of the services offered in-house, our students have the opportunity to develop a strong foundation of diagnostic and rehabilitative skills prior to external clinical rotations.
Audiology’s national model is to have three years of classroom and clinical instruction, followed by a one-year, full-time clinical placement under the guidance of an audiology preceptor. Recent fourth-year settings have included locally and nationally-competitive placements such as the Veteran’s Administration, U.S. Army, Loyola University School of Medicine, and the University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center. Fourth-year placements are choreographed by the program’s externship coordinator, but students have the opportunity to provide input as to location or special clinical interests. The externship coordinator maintains contact with the fourth-year students and their on-site preceptors throughout the year.