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Introduction
FAQs Project History Admission/ Tuition Units of Study - Courses Mentorship Experience Graduates Faculty Giving to FIRST YEARS fyi newsletter Contact Us |
Important note: The current course management system for FIRST YEARS, i.e. Blackboard, is to be phased out. Check back in June, 2012, for a revision of our course tutorials.
FIRST
YEARS uses Blackboard to
manage our "virtual classroom." Each course features lesson topics,
or "learning units," which typically span one or two weeks. Each
unit introduces the topic, gives assigned readings, and lists required
activities in which you will participate. Everything you need to complete
your exercises will be with each lesson unit.
Our course demo, which will take you about 2 hours to complete, covers the features you can expect to see in the certificate courses. You will be required to complete this Blackboard tutorial when accepted into the program. However, if you prefer not to take the time to do the full tutorial now, you can take a short course tour instead.
The FIRST YEARS courses (below) are offered for academic credit. The five courses listed below are taken in sequence, one a semester beginning in the fall session.
An
overview of relevant issues in educating young children with hearing loss,
with the focus on the early childhood population from birth to 8 years.
3 credit hours. A Quality Matters
recognized course. *
- Unit 1. Working with Families and Teams
- Unit 2. Audiology Interpretation
- Unit 3. Basic Speech Acoustics
- Unit 4. Hearing Technologies (part 1, hearing aids, FM systems; part 2, cochlear implants)
- Unit 5. Normal Aspects of Speech, Language and Auditory Development
- Unit 6. Emergent Literacy
* This logo recognizes that this course met FIPSE Quality Matters review standards. The Quality Matters program is a faculty-centered peer course review Quality Assurance process. Review criteria are linked to external standards; criteria and process are supported through instructional design principles; and the process is vetted by faculty experts. Quality Matters is sponsored by MarylandOnline, Inc. and was funded in part by the U.S. Department of Education Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education/FIPSE.
Behavioral and physiologic assessment of hearing in children and how these measures are used in aural habilitation. Fundamentals of hearing instrument technology including the selection and fitting of hearing aids and cochlear implants. 4 credit hours.
- Unit 1. Development of the Hearing Mechanism
- Unit 2. When Something Goes Wrong: Hearing Loss in Children & Its Causes
- Unit 3. Newborn Hearing Screening & Follow Up
- Unit 4. Audiological Assessment
- Unit 5. Amplification Options
- Unit 6. Cochlear Implants
Fundamentals of speech production including the acoustic characteristics of normal and disordered speech. 2 credit hours.
- Unit 1. Acoustic Phonetics: What and Why?
- Unit 2. The Primary Acoustic Dimensions of Sound, or Wow! Look What Your Ears Can Do!
- Unit 3. The Mechanics of Sounds in English: Sources and Filters
- Unit 4. Acoustic Correlates of Consonants
- Unit 5. Speech Perception
Typical auditory, speech and language development, impact of hearing loss on listening and spoken language acquisition, assessment, strategies/techniques, and intervention for children, birth-8 years, who are deaf/hard of hearing. 3 credit hours.
- Unit 1. Foundations: Speech, Language and Auditory Development
- Unit 2. Auditory Development, Assessment, and Facilitation of Auditory Learning
- Unit 3. Normal Language Development: Foundations
- Unit 4. Tracking Language Development
- Unit 4A. Tracking Language Development: The Roadmaps, Part A
- Unit 4B. Tracking Language Development: From Theory to Practice, Part B
- Unit 5. Language Development: Assessment and Intervention
- Unit 6. Speech Development, Assessment and Intervention
The definition, characteristics, and theoretical bases of emergent literacy and their application at home and at school to facilitate the development of literacy skills. 3 credit hours.
- Unit 1. Hearing and Literacy: Why They are Important and How Hearing Makes Literacy Easier
- Unit 2. Theories of Literacy: What Is Known Currently About How Reading and Writing Work?
- Unit 3. Spoken Language: Making the Move from Speaking to Reading and Writing
- Unit 4. Learning to Read: How to “Normalize” the Process
- Unit 5. Learning to Write: How to Work with Writing Along with Reading
- Unit 6. What Can Be Accomplished? And Other Questions …
The UNC Registrar's Office maintains listings of academic calendars, including semester schedules. For information relating specifically to FIRST YEARS registration, see our pages on Admission/Registration/Tuition.
An integral component of the FIRST YEARS certification program
is a planned, "hands on" mentored experience
at carefully selected centers and schools across
the nation. The timing and duration of the mentored experience is designed
to ensure optimal integration of the certificate instruction into professional
practice.
To learn more about mentorship requirements for students, see Participating in the Mentorship Experience.
To learn more about site mentorship requirements, see Becoming a Mentorship Site.
