Postgraduate Certificate (Childhood Language And Communication Impairments)

Course details

This Postgraduate Certificate has been designed to facilitate participants to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes in relation to using evidence in practice with children with developmental language, and communication needs. By way of context for this development, the Postgraduate Certificate is viewed as a short-term plan which will feed into a wider strategy to develop an innovative MSc programme. The MSc, with an interdisciplinary focus on Childhood Speech, Language and Communication Needs, will be rolled out in 2017/2018.

Key Facts

Entry Requirements

Minimum academic and/or professional qualifications and standards required, together with any equivalence that may apply.

Applicants will be expected to possess a good quality first degree at NFQ Level 8 (at least an upper second class honours degree) or an equivalent qualification. Applicants who are in employment will be requested to provide evidence of written support.

All applicants that meet the minimum entry criteria will be considered. Suitable applicants will be selected on the basis of academic excellence and demonstrable interest in working with children with developmental speech, language and communication needs.

Course Outline

This programme has been designed to meet the needs of busy practitioners and is based on the model developed by the School of Nursing and Midwifery. It is comprised of 3 modules (see Table 1). Applicants will have the option of registering for the Postgraduate Certificate (30 credits) or they can choose the Professional Credit Award (10 credits) option. The learning outcomes will be achieved by providing a one-day induction programme in Semester 1 which will focus on:

• expectations of the programme
• navigational skills e.g., library use, literature search strategies, referencing, introduction to Blackboard
• Orientation to specific modules and assessment strategies

There will be a flexible blended learning approach which combines face-to-face workshops and on-line learning. For each module, there will be two face-to-face workshops which will comprise group-work, student-led tutorials, simulated case scenarios, and skills development activities. The on-line activities will include lectures, self-directed learning tasks, reading materials. In the survey which was conducted in 2014/2015 participants expressed a strong preference for this approach (91%) (n=43).

Table 1: Structure of the Programme

Module

• Advanced Research Methods
• Narratives in Childhood
• Using evidence in practice