Noting the increased attention being given to the communication needs of specific professional groups, this paper concentrates upon the needs of engineers and engineering students. The first section of the paper provides a general discussion of the communication needs of practicing engineers and technicians and of the ways in which these needs have traditionally been met. The section serves as a rationale for the development of courses for engineers that concentrate on spoken communication. The second section describes the development of one course, which includes both oral and written communication, that was specifically structured for students in an engineering curriculum. The final section reports on a limited survey of 65 speech communication departments, which was designed to gather information about the amount of attention being given to the area of technical communication in the discipline. (FL)