Dokuz Eylul University Faculty of Health Sciences

Speech and Language Therapy Department

The Speech and Language Therapy profession in Turkey has gained legal status by law No: 6225 dated 06/04/2011. All necessary attempts required have been fulfilled due to this status and the increasing need for speech and language therapists, and establishment of the Speech and Language Therapy Department within the Faculty of Health Sciences of Dokuz Eylul University was approved in the Executive Board of Higher Education dated 17/01/2018. The department is now in the stage of establishment, so student recruitment has not started yet.

The speech and language therapist is an expert responsible for the lifelong prevention, differential diagnosis, evaluation, treatment and scientific investigation of human communication disorders. They are concerned with human communication and language- speech and treats all voice, speech, swallowing and language disorders in children, adolescents, adults and the elderly, regardless of the reasons. Within this context the main aim of this department is to train therapists at national and international standards in accordance with the title of the profession and the job definition.

Language and speech are two different phenomena. Language is a system that we symbolically encode our thoughts and use them to communicate. The language is divided into two parts: the receptive language and the expressive language. Whereas receptive language is defined as the perception of what is said and written, expressive language is the expression of our feelings and thoughts verbally and in written. Also, the language is controlled  and provided by the language centers of the brain, and any damages in these centers cause receptive or expressive language disorders. However, speech is the motor processes to extract sounds in the verbal language. In this process speech organs produce the sounds of language and to be able to speak the diaphragm, lungs, trachea, larynx, vocal cords, palate, tongue, nose and teeth need joint collaboration. The presence of any disfunctions in one or more of these organs cause speech disorders. Since the language and speech disorders are completely different in nature, the treatment approaches to language and speech problems are also different. Therefore therapies should be done by a speech and language therapist.

Department of Speech and Language Therapy will be a 4 years full time program and the language of instruction will be Turkish. For four years, both theoretical and practical courses will be carried out by expert academicians. The content of the training in the theoretical and practical courses will focus on different fields such as Biomedical Sciences, Linguistics, Behavioral Sciences, Speech and Therapy Science, Research Sciences and Public Health. Apart from the courses related to these fields, the students will be directed to various studies to develop their field knowledge and these studies will be in the form of seminars, reports, research projects. In order to be a good speech and language therapist, it is very important to see the practice of this profession and to follow the therapies in order to recognize different practices in different disorders. In this respect, students will be provided with the opportunity to follow the language and speech therapy practices. In addition to these studies, the students will have internship responsibilities in order to increase their experience in the field. Students who successfully complete the 4-year process will graduate with the title of “Speech and Language Therapist” and they will have job opportunities in both health and education institutions (Hospitals, Health Centers, Rehabilitation Centers, Public or Private Education Centers etc., Ministry of Education, Guidance and Counseling Services Centers etc.)