Development and Approval of a Position Statement on Use of Support Personnel in Audiology
In 1992, a Task Force on Support Personnel was established to study the issue of use of support personnel in audiology and speech-language pathology.
In 1994, a decision was made to separate the guidelines for use of support personnel in audiology from those for speech-language pathology and have a separate group develop the guidelines related to audiology.
ASHA appointed representatives to a Consensus Panel on Support Personnel in Audiology for a one-year period to start work in November 1995. The panel was composed of representatives from all interested audiology organizations and cochaired by ASHA and the American Academy of Audiology (AAA).
The Consensus Panel met on Nov. 11-12,1995, and drafted a position statement and guidelines.
In February 1996, the position statement and guidelines were sent for widespread and select peer review and component organization review. (ASHA was the only organization requiring this peer review step; the other organizations sent the material to their respective boards for review.)
In July 1996, the documents went to each organization for approval.
In August 1996, the ASHA Executive Board asked that the guidelines document be modified to include reference to the CCC-A as a descriptor of the supervising audiologist.
Each member organization was polled, and all except ASHA refused to modify the document, preferring a generic certification and licensure reference.
In October, the Executive Board (EB 78-96) voted not to recommend approval of the guidelines by a vote of 0-7-2.
In November 1996, the Legislative Council met, discussed the proposed policies, and referred them back to the Executive Board, which then referred it back to the VP for Audiology.
National Office staff were asked to revise the guidelines per Executive Board and Legislative Council input and then resubmitted the position statement and guidelines with modifications to the Board for action in March 1997 (EB 18-97). The Executive Board recommended approval, 8-0, for Legislative Council action.
The documents went to Resolutions Committee, which decided that this was still policy. They approved the VP for Audiology's recommendation to send the guidelines out in a mail ballot (although there was some disagreement on this topic).
Documents were sent for mail ballot to the Legislative Council in May 1997. Deadline for return was May 26th. More than 15 councilors objected to the use of mail ballot. The guidelines will be placed on the November Legislative Council 1997 agenda for action.
The original consensus panel documents will be published (minus ASHA) in AAA's journal, Audiology Today , in 1997.
If the Legislative Council approves the position statement and guidelines, the policies would be published in the April 1998 supplement to Asha , almost one year after the consensus panel document is published.
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