MSc in Clinical Speech and Language Studies

Course Structure

Full-time options take place over 12 weeks within the academic year. . Each week consists of five full days of teaching. Students must attend Trinity College Dublin for these teaching weeks. Additional assignment work, self-directed learning, and clinical work must be conducted outside of these weeks.

Further information about the course structure is available in the General Course Handbook 2024-25. Classes are designed to facilitate overseas students and those in employment. Students will attend classes on campus for two weeks per month. This allows students to use the remaining weeks to travel or work. This can be seen in the date schedule for 2024/25.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this programme, graduates should demonstrate:

1. Excellence in clinical practice through extending and enhancing their existing theoretical knowledge base with a critical awareness of new insights and developments within their chosen clinical specialist area.
2. An ability to apply their existing scientific literacy skills to research and clinical practice.
3. A comprehensive understanding and mastery of concepts, information and techniques relevant to research methodology.
4. An ability to design and implement, with a degree of autonomy, and with due regard to ethical considerations, small-scale research studies in their chosen clinical specialist area. These studies will add to the existing professional knowledge base.
5. An ability to communicate confidently with peers on their area of expertise through formal presentations and with the wider scholarly community through oral presentations and published articles.
6. Sustained intellectual interest and critical thinking as professionals through application of scientific literacy skills in the pursuit of lifelong learning.

Clinical Experience

Students taking the MSc in Clinical Speech and Language Studies will undergo clinical experience as part of the course. This will comprise 80 hours observation of advanced practice within the chosen clinical specialist pathway. Clinical experience is organised by the Department of Clinical Speech and Language Studies, but applicants who already have a site arranged when entering the course will also be facilitated. Any pre-arranged sites must be agreed first with the Department.

Modules

Students will take the following modules:

• Advanced Clinical Skills (Dysphagia or Voice)
• Dissertation
• Evidence Based Practice
• Research Methods 1 (quantitative focus)
• Research Methods 2 (qualitative focus)
• Research Methods 3 (research design and research ethics focus)

The Dissertation module is associated with the research project that must be completed by the student. All other modules are in first year.
For further information about the content of each module, refer to the 2024-25 Module Handbook.

Admission

We accept applications from any person who meets the criteria below.

• Qualification: You must be a qualified Speech and Language Therapist or Speech-Language Pathologist. Your qualification must accredit you to practise in the country where you qualified. In some countries, accreditation is given by the government, a national professional association (e.g. ASHA, RCSLT), or both. In countries where the government and the national professional association accredit qualifications, your qualification must be recognised by both organisations.
• Grades:You must hold an honors undergraduate degree with an overall grade of II.1 or higher. If your country does not use this grading system, your grade using the Irish universities system will be calculated when you apply.
• References: During the application process, you will be asked to supply two the names and details of two academic referees. These are two lecturers (full-time members of academic staff and not visiting or casual lecturers), who will provide a written reference letter for you. They will be contacted automatically by TCD Academic Registry when you apply. We cannot accept referees who are clinical or managerial positions, only academic references are acceptable. We require references that are dated and they should be from within the past 12 months.
• English: If you are a non-native English speaker, you need to meet specific English language requirements. There are a number of English language tests that you can take and these are listed here.

Further Advice before Applying

• Applicants from outside the EU will require a study visa to attend the MSc programme. These are issued by the Irish government and can take some time to process, so apply early. The visa required for the programme is a ‘long stay study visa’. Further information can be found here.
• Those taking English language tests should be aware that test centres often take a long time to issue results, so we encourage applicants to take their English language proficiency examinations as early as possible.
• Any official documentation from the university where you received your undergraduate degree and professional qualification (e.g. degree certificates, transcripts of results) that are not in English must be translated into English and certified by an official translation agency as a true copy.
• During the application process, you will be asked to complete a document that asks you to choose your preferred clinical specialist pathway. If your application is successful, you will receive a notification from the Academic Registry to say that you have been accepted to ‘MSc Clinical Speech and Language Studies’ course. This is simply the title of the degree; pathway preferences do not appear in the title, but you will be assigned the pathway you have chosen in your application.
• Clinical specialist pathways will only run with a minimum of five applicants students. We will typically be able to advise you whether your pathway will run by July 31st at the latest.
• Accommodation in Dublin can be difficult to find. The university offers some support in this regard and further details can be found here. We can also put applicants in contact with one another (and usually with students who are already in the course), which has been helpful in the past.

Fees and Scholarships

Fees for the course are handled by the Academic Registry and can change from year to year. Current fees are listed here. There are different fee structures depending on whether you are an EU or non-EU applicant. Please note that EU status is not automatic by citizenship. For details about whether you qualify for EU fees, see this page.

The Department of Clinical Speech and Language Studies do not offer scholarships or fee discounts. Trinity College Dublin however sometimes have scholarships for which you may be eligible to apply. These can be found here. If you are not eligible for any of these scholarships, you may consider investigating whether the government of your home country has any scholarships available.

Contact Us

You may like to visit the Admissions page or the Graduate Studies page.

If you still have questions, you can contact our Executive Officer (Mr. Brendan McFadden) at: cslssec@tcd.ie.