Submissions open September 1, 2020, for the 2021 Student Ethics Essay Award (SEEA) competition. Authors of winning essays will be notified in June 2021. See SEEA Award recipients to view previous winners and read their winning essays.
The SEEA program is conducted as part of ASHA's efforts to enhance ethics education activities. The goal of the program is to encourage students to think about ethical decision making and create greater awareness of situations that could pose ethical dilemmas as they prepare to start careers in audiology, speech-language pathology, or speech, language, and hearing sciences.
The essay competition is open to students who are enrolled in any undergraduate, post baccalaureate, or entry-level graduate program (U.S. only) in communication sciences and disorders (CSD). Former and current members of ASHA's Board of Ethics review the essays and select three winning authors. SEEA winners receive the following:
In collaboration with NSSLHA, SEEA winners and their essays are recognized in the following locations.
Students: To be considered eligible to participate in the SEEA competition, you must be
Clinical supervisors have unique responsibilities to the clients/patients/students they serve as well as to the student clinicians with whom they partner. Regardless of the title—clinical supervisor, clinical educator, or preceptor—the welfare of the persons served ultimately rests with the supervising audiologist or speech-language pathologist and must be held paramount.
Although the Board of Ethics does not have jurisdiction over students, the Code of Ethics does apply to their supervisors, clinic directors, and mentors. When working with student clinicians, supervisors may only delegate tasks that are commensurate with the education, training, and experience of the student. Supervisors must also inform clients/patients/students of the name, role, and credentials of the person who is providing their professional services. At no time may a supervisor delegate tasks that require the unique skills, professional judgement and/or credentials of the certified individual (e.g., diagnosis, test interpretation, and development of therapy plans).
Consider the ethical issues that may arise when professional services are provided by student clinicians. In your essay, present a potential ethical challenge or dilemma that may be faced by a student clinician and/or supervisor in this scenario. Then, using ethics resources and the ASHA Code of Ethics (2016), (1) identify one or more Principles and the corresponding Rule(s) that you believe have been violated, (2) provide a rationale for your choice(s), and (3) discuss what action(s) could have been taken to acknowledge and respond to the challenge or dilemma in order to prevent a violation of the Code of Ethics.
To receive the maximum score available, you and your essay must first meet all of the following requirements.
Things to keep in mind as you write your essay:
Contact Karol Scher, ASHA staff liaison to the Ethics Education Subcommittee of the Board of Ethics, at ethics@asha.org.