This text-based course is a transcript of the webinar, “Speech-Language Pathology Assistants (SLPAs): Current trends and perspectives,” presented by Jennifer A. Ostergren, Ph.D., CCC-SLP.
>> Dr. Jennifer Ostergren: It is very timely to be discussing speech-language pathology assistants. When I last presented on SpeechPathology.com, we still had all documents from ASHA relative to training and use, and some scope of practice for SLPAs. I am excited to be back to discuss some new things that are happening at ASHA relative to the new scope of practice. I plan to also give an overview about current trends nationally, not just relative to ASHA, but state entities as well.
Course Agenda
The majority of this course will focus on describing the core details of ASHA’s 2013 scope of practice document. I will highlight some current ASHA resources, talk about the scope of practice, and then move on to current trends in licensure and regulation of SLPAs. Lastly, I will describe ASHA’s recently adopted affiliation program for support personnel. I will add as I go through the presentation what I call “detours.” If there is information that I want to add, some additional detail, or share additional resources with you, we will pop away from the ASHA scope for a bit and talk about that, and then go back to it.
ASHA Resources
There are quite a few resources that are now available for SLPAs and for those who supervise SLPAs. Several of them are contained on ASHA’s policy document webpage (http://www.asha.org/policy). One of the newest resources is the SLPA Scope of Practice (ASHA, 2013). Prior to that, there were several documents that addressed support personnel including audiology assistants. This new document collapsed several of those resources into one scope and added quite a bit of detail in important areas, such as ethics and liability issues. It also expanded the scope quite and made some clarifying statements that I think are very helpful. The SLPA Scope of Practice is probably the first go-to resource for both SLPAs and their supervisors.
ASHA also has the Ethical Issues Concerning the Use of Support Personnel (ASHA, 2004) that teases out more ethical discussions about support personnel.
The Code of Ethics is a resource that is always relevant when discussing SLPAs and supervision. That is actually talked about within the scope of practice document, but the actual code itself is an important document to refer to.
ASHA’s Confidentiality document is an important resource (2013).
There is also a document, Clinical Supervision in SLPs (in General), that is a technical report that came out in 2008. That is helpful for getting a foundation on supervision. It discusses Anderson's levels of feedback in supervision and is a good overview on the topic of supervision.
Another new document that came out in 2013 from an ad hoc committee on supervision (http://www.asha.org/uploadedFiles/Supervisors-Knowledge-Skills-Report.pdf) discusses support personnel, recommendations about future directions relative to supervision, and also supervision of graduate students, supervision of CFYs, and supervision of support personnel. Those are all very helpful, good resources in that area.
Also in terms of ASHA’s website, there are some practice portals that contain the ASHA website and other resources all housed in one location on a specific topic. Specifically, there is one on professional practice issues related to SLPAs (http://www.asha.org/Practice-Portal/Professional-Issues/Speech-Language-Pathology-Assistants). The practice portals have summaries of the new ASHA scope as well as any new information that is added. I like this new approach because it is a living document of sorts. The ASHA Scope was recently published and it is very helpful, but as new information becomes available, the practice portal is a good source for finding information that might be related.
