Deafness Rehabilitation Graduate Certificate

The deafness rehabilitation certificate is a distance education program available to students whose career interests relate to working with individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing. This 12 credit-hour certificate is limited to those students who demonstrate at least an intermediate level of skill with the Sign Language Proficiency Inventory (SLPI) prior to admission to the certificate. Courses specific to the Graduate Certificate in Deafness Rehabilitation are taught via distance education and integrate American Sign Language (ASL) as the primary means of delivery of lecture material. Required courses are:

• ASL 421 Deaf Culture and Community  (delivered through Department of Theory and Practice of Teacher Education)
• RHCO 521 Rehabilitation Services in the Deaf Community  
• RHCO 522 Communication with Persons who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing  
• RHCO 523 Special Populations and Topics in Deafness Rehabilitation  

The four required courses of the Graduate Certificate in Deafness Rehabilitation will be taught during one semester. In that semester, students will be required to be present at the Knoxville campus for individualized instruction in counseling skill for approximately one week. Students may pursue the certificate independently or may complete it in addition to the Counseling Major, (MS), Rehabilitation Counseling concentration. The concentration will be offered periodically, according to volume of requests for admissions, external funding, and other considerations.

Program Contact:  Dr. Patrick Dunn, JD, PhD, CRC, pdunn4@utk.edu.