Expert, professional, comprehensive services are available through the UGA Speech and Hearing Clinic for prevention, assessment, and treatment of speech, language, swallowing, and hearing disorders. The Clinic provides a valuable service to the community, seeing approximately 1000 different clients each year. Over 2000 free speech and hearing screenings are provided annually in preschools, schools, and our on-campus clinic. These screenings provide early identification of hearing, speech, language and swallowing problems so that appropriate intervention can be recommended or provided.

The COPPA Project is a graduate level collaborative personnel preparation program for teachers and professionals from related disciplines interested in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The Project is an expansion of a previous initiative (2003-2006) between the Special Education program at UGA and Gwinnett County Public Schools (GCPS). The new Project expands on that original partnership by including UGA faculty from the Educational Psychology program and three additional public school systems (Forsyth, Cobb, and Clarke counties).

The CAATT Project is a graduate degree program in special education that prepares highly trained educators to work with middle and high school aged students with autism. This program originated as an extension of the COPPA project that was a collaborative effort between several schools systems (Forsyth, Clarke, and Gwinnett) and the University of Georgia to prepare teachers to work with elementary school aged children with autism. Building upon the success of COPPA and recognizing the unique needs of adolescents with autism, we have formed partnerships with Gwinnett, Madison and Clarke County public schools to launch this program in Fall 2009.

REED is a federal grant project that is linked to the Birth through Five program. The purpose of project REED is to implement a new joint undergraduate program to prepare responsive, early education and care providers in response to Georgia’s Birth through Five teaching certification. This program is a joint effort between the Department of Communication Sciences and Special Education and the Department of Child and Family Development at the University of Georgia, Clarke County School’s Programs for Young Children (urban), and Madison County School’s preschool special education program (rural). Federal funds are available to provide a limited number of fellowships and out of state tuition stipends for eligible candidates.