Professional Development Requirements for ASHA Certification Maintenance and Reinstatement Applications

Individuals who hold the ASHA Certificate of Clinical Competence (CCC) must complete professional development activities throughout their career. The ongoing requirement for ASHA-certified individuals to complete professional development hours (PDHs) to maintain certification is written into the ASHA certification standards—audiology and speech-language pathology—and into the ASHA Code of Ethics, which states that certificate holders “shall enhance and refine their professional competence and expertise through engagement in lifelong learning” (Principle II, Rule C).

One PDH is equal to 60 minutes spent completing a professional development activity as a learner and participant. PDHs are accumulated for the purpose of maintaining the CCC. The video above explains the similarities and differences between PDHs and ASHA continuing education units (CEUs), which is another unit of measurement of professional development.

On this page:

• What is Professional Development?
• Choosing Professional Development Activities
• Activities Accepted for Professional Development
• Activities Not Accepted for Professional Development
• Documenting Your Professional Development
• Reporting Units for Professional Development

What is Professional Development?

For purposes of maintaining or reinstating ASHA certification, professional development is an instructional activity that must meet the following criteria:

• The certificate holder or reinstatement applicant is the learner.
• The content relates to the science or contemporary practices listed in the Scope of Practice in Audiology or Scope of Practice in Speech-Language Pathology.
• Completion of the activity results in the acquisition of new knowledge and skills—or the enhancement of current knowledge and skills—necessary for independent practice.
• The certificate holder's or reinstatement applicant's attendance can be verified and documented by a third party (e.g., employer, educational institution, or sponsoring organization). See Documenting Your Professional Development below.

Choosing Professional Development Activities

You are responsible for determining if the topics of professional development activities you select are appropriate, relevant, and meaningful to any practice setting—you don’t need prior approval from ASHA for the activities you choose. You can complete professional development activities online and/or in person. An activity will count based on its date of completion, not the date it was started.

• Professional Development for Certification Maintenance: Individuals who hold ASHA certification must complete 30 hours of professional development during each 3-year certification maintenance interval. This continuous process is intended to help keep you up to date on contemporary clinical trends and best care practices, while your clients/patients benefit from your clinical competence. If you complete more than 30 PDHs during your current maintenance interval, the additional hours cannot be applied to your next interval.
• Professional Development for Reinstatement of Certification: Individuals who apply for reinstatement of ASHA certification in either audiology (CCC-A) or speech-language pathology (CCC-SLP) must show proof of completed professional development activities as listed in the respective policies and procedures.

Activities Accepted for Professional Development

The following are examples of acceptable professional development activities, provided that the content relates to your professional scope of practice.

• ASHA continuing education (CE)
• seminars or courses offered by other organizations for other types of CE credit
• conferences and workshops offered by state audiology, speech-language pathology, or other other professional associations
• employer-sponsored in-service activities
  • medical Grand Rounds
  • special education workshops (i.e., Americans with Disabilities Act requirements)
  • structured clinical reasoning or journal clubs reviewing evidence-based practice
  • formal training sessions sponsored by manufacturers on equipment used in the evaluation or treatment of your clients/patients
  • industry/career training (i.e., professional ethics, diversity issues, reimbursement issues, clinical supervision/leadership, and service delivery)
• business and management content that will help you manage your private practice
• college or university course work (associate's, undergraduate, or graduate level), including formal online, non-credit courses
  • foreign language(s) needed to communicate to the population with whom you work
  • master’s degree in business administration for clinical private practice management
  • doctoral degree in a field that relates to communication sciences and disorders
• presenting an evidence-based session at a conference or organized learning event
  • take credit for the number of hours listed on the certificate of completion
  • do this one time per maintenance interval or per reinstatement application for the presented topic
• Independent Study activities

Activities Not Accepted for Professional Development

The following are examples of activities that do not meet the criteria of professional development:

• supervising students
• mentoring SLP Clinical Fellows
• work experiences per job description
  • daily clinical work
  • developing curriculum
  • teaching academic coursework
  • conducting clinical research
  • writing a book or an article
• volunteer work
  • committee meetings
  • attending board meetings
  • serving time on a council
  • peer review for or editing of professional publications
• business meetings
• association membership

Documenting Your Professional Development Activities

When providing documentation for professional development, be sure to keep the forms that verify your attendance and/or completion of the activities.

Certificates of Completion

Hold onto the certificates of completion for each professional development activity you finish, in case of a maintenance audit or a need to reinstate your certification. In these cases, you will only be asked to provide documentation of your professional development activities.

Certificates of completion must include the following information:

• your name as the participant
• title of the course or activity
• name of the sponsoring organization or college/university
• date(s) of attendance or completion
• number of professional development hours earned (see Reporting Units for Professional Development)

Verification of Attendance Forms

If an organization does not provide verification of attendance, you can use the Verification of Attendance Form [PDF] to keep track of the hours you’ve completed.

Academic Coursework

If you earn hours through academic/college coursework, be sure to keep a copy of your transcript.

ASHA CE Registry

If you are an annual subscriber of the ASHA CE Registry, you can view all the ASHA CEUs that you've earned by logging into your ASHA account. Read the Certification Maintenance CE Registry FAQs for more information.

If you are not a CE Registry subscriber, we recommend tracking the PDHs that you earn by (1) recording them using your own method and (2) including the bulleted information above under Certificates of Completion.

Reporting Units for Professional Development

There are different types of professional development credit hours that maybe awarded for the activities you complete. All types of credits can be used for ASHA certification maintenance or for certification reinstatement applications. The minimum duration of time accepted for any PDH is 30 minutes; however, PDHs may increase thereafter by 15-minute or quarter-hour intervals. If the credit hours you've earned are not easily converted to PDHs, use the following conversions:

Questions?

Contact cccmaintenance@asha.org with any additional questions.