Early Intervention

The interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate in Early Intervention program was developed in response to state and national needs to prepare personnel to serve infants and toddlers with disabilities, or who are at risk for developmental delays, and their families. The program is approved by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) as meeting the requirements for provisional certification with advanced standing as an early intervention specialist.

Northeastern’s EI program is the only higher-education program approved by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MA DPH) that is interdisciplinary in its faculty, students, and curriculum. Courses are team-taught by faculty from the following disciplines: school, counseling, and developmental psychology; speech language pathology and audiology; physical therapy; special education; and nursing. As a result, students experience the team approach that is current practice in the field. Completion of the program leads to the required state certification for early intervention personnel at the advanced provisional level.

The early intervention specialization may be pursued as 1) an independent certificate program; 2) integrated into a graduate program in speech-language pathology and audiology, school psychology, counseling psychology, or physical therapy;.or 3) integrated into an undergraduate program in psychology or human services. Personnel who work in the EI field may pursue the certificate program in the context of their employment.

The program of study consists of four courses and a practicum, which are integrated, as much as possible, within the curriculum of a student’s specific degree program. All academic courses are offered in a hybrid format that combines online learning with four classroom meetings per semester. Because the program is interdisciplinary, scheduling of courses is done in such a way as to make it available to as many programs as possible.

The practicum requires 300 hours of field experience in a MA DPH-certified EI program. Field training usually takes place over two semesters, unless it is embedded into one semester of a discipline-specific degree program.