ASHA's Latest Power And Money Grab Announced

Is ASHA all about gaining control over your professional life and sucking as much money out of you as possible?

ASHA makes a lot of money. In 2008, ASHA had assets of more than $93 million dollars. (Don't let the "non-profit" label on ASHA fool you. There may not be any profits handed out to stockholders but the people who run ASHA receive salaries many times what school-based SLPs receive). With top ASHA employees getting six figure incomes and ASHA's boss getting paid more than the president of the United States, ASHA needs to keep its cash registers constantly ringing. But ASHA has a problem achieving that goal: its market is saturated. There are very few SLPs left who aren't already members of ASHA. ASHA knows it can't squeeze much more money out of its current members because they're fed up: one more ASHA dues hike and they'll walk. There are few areas left that ASHA can expand its greedy tentacles into. That's why I knew it was only a matter of time before ASHA went after SLP assistants. Well, it's time. In the August 3, 2010 issue of The ASHA Leader, ASHA president Tommy Robinson announced that:

"..the time is right to welcome audiology assistants and speech-language pathology assistants (SLPAs) into ASHA.."

This is like Wal-Mart announcing that the time is right to plant one of their ugly big-box stores in your charming small town and then put all the mom and pop stores there out of business. Tommy Robinson paints ASHA's latest power grab in warm glowing terms, as if ASHA was performing a charitable public service deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize instead of simply cooking up another cash-grabbing scheme. Get a load of the following:

Anticipating change and responding to the needs of our members is at the core of the decision by the Board of Directors to create a new form of affiliation in ASHA for communication sciences and disorders (CSD) support personnel—ASHA associates. 

Yeah, right; this is all about responding to our needs - it has absolutely nothing to do with ASHA's vampire-like need to sink its bloodsucking fangs into the throat of one more fresh virgin.

 If we want to have an impact on the proper use of SLPAs and audiology support staff, we need to get involved on the inside. 

Translation:


If we want to get control over SLPAs and audiology support staff in the future, we'd better start doing that now before these rubes figure out they can get along perfectly well without us!

And here comes ASHA's method of gaining absolute control over SLPAs:

Associates must agree to abide by a professional practice statement that, among other things, requires that they work only under the supervision of an ASHA-certified audiologist or SLP. (Italics added)

It's my opinion that ASHA is laying the groundwork now to ensure that at some future date, no SLPA could find work unless they did so under a SLP who was forking out money for ASHA's quasi-degree (the CCCs). I believe that ASHA is beginning to spin its web now so that eventually everyone who wants to work in the field will have to fork cash over to ASHA for the mere right to work.
No ASHA affiliation? If ASHA has its way, good luck finding someone who will hire you. When your job search comes up empty,you'll cave in and decide its better to send ASHA protection money a check than let your family starve to death. What is amazing about this is the fact that ASHA did absolutely nothing to help you earn your degree and state license. But once you finally get those  - all alone and by the sweat of your brow - ASHA quickly rushes in like a wedding crasher at a reception buffet, grabbing everything it can get its hands on. It is my opinion that ASHA found a way to get a near stranglehold on your employability by propping up its worthless certificates with its marketing. This leads employers to believe that SLPs and SLPAs who haven't been certified by ASHA are somehow less competent and less knowledgeable than those who have. Personally, I've noticed that the more an individual SLP is breathlessly gung-ho about ASHA, the more of an idiot they usually are, and the less effective they are as therapists. 
The announcement continues:

 This affiliation category is focused on helping us maintain our high standards and improve patient care.

High standards? Who does ASHA think it's kidding? To get an idea of how abysmally low ASHA's standards actually are in practice, read a few of the past posts on this blog.

We will be mailing ASHA associate applications to candidates across the country later this year. Prior to that, we will send application information to all ASHA certificate-holders who are interested in knowing more about what's involved with joining ASHA at this level. You may want to recruit associates with whom you work and sign off on an associate's application. (Italics added)

Personally, I would sooner pimp for underage prostitutes than I would for ASHA. 

Watch for more detailed information about the associates' program in future issues of The ASHA Leader.

Don't worry, Tommy; I'll be watching very, very closely. 

We are excited about the potential of this new category of affiliation to help us better work with and manage the use of support personnel in speech-language pathology and audiology and to help ASHA members further grow as supervisors and CSD professionals.  (italics added) Substitute "control" for manage and you get the real purpose of this.

ASHA is not an organization that "sticks its head in the sand" while change is happening around us.

ASHA has had its head stuck in the sand about absolutely everything else happening around it; why should this time be any different? Oh, right! Because this time ASHA can make a hell of a lot of money if it pulls its head out of its ass the sand. 

ASHA is a leader, helping to meet the challenges facing our professions and working with us to build a strong and secure future for the discipline of communication sciences and disorders.

This isn't about leadership: it's about greed and exploitation. Even worse, it's exploitation of the lowest paid members of our profession: SLP assistants - many of whom are struggling single working moms. You want to see some real leadership? Talk to the people at StutterTalk, The British Stammering Association, The Stuttering Foundation of America, Barry Guitar, Peter Ramig, or even me: we've raised the issues that ASHA doesn't have the integrity or guts to address. We're practicing leadership, not ASHA. If ASHA's fat-cat elitist bosses really cared about the profession, they'd be addressing the real issues plaguing it instead of concocting one more way to take away the hard-earned money of therapists and assistants.