To maintain your national certification as an SLP—those CCC-SLP letters after your name—you must do continuing education. You’ll need 30 hours every three years, starting the January after you’re awarded the CCC-SLP. For grad students, that means you can start taking and tracking your continuing education hours approximately one year after you get your masters degree, and then you’ll have three more years before you have to report those courses to ASHA. Yes, it sucks that CEUs you might do during your clinical fellowship year don’t count. Listed below are some tips on getting CEUs in ST (Speech Therapy)
1. Check for Eligibility
Are you eligible to receive Continuing Education Units (CEUs) from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association? To be eligible, you must meet at least one of the following requirements:
- Member of the ASHA (includes Life Member and International affiliates)
- ASHA Certificate of Clinical Competence (CCC) Holder.
- Licensed to practise speech-language pathology (SLP) or audiology by a state or provincial regulatory agency.
- Credentialed by a state regulatory agency to practice SLP or audiology.
- Credentialed by a national regulatory agency to practice SLP or audiology.
- Participating in a Clinical Fellowship under the supervision of someone with their ASHA CCC.
- Currently enrolled in a master’s or doctorate degree in speech-language pathology or audiology.
One of these conditions must be met by the time you complete a CEU course in order for it to be applied to your certification.
2. Find Approved Continuing Education Providers
Find ASHA CEU courses that can help you achieve your educational and professional goals while also assisting you to retain certification and meet licencing renewal criteria. There are over 145,000 ASHA-approved courses available (online and in-person). To find an Approved Provider, use the ASHA CEFind service.
3. Ensure That You Are On the ASHA Registry
The ASHA CE Registry is the only service that keeps track of your ASHA CEUs. If ASHA CEUs are sought at the time of course completion, the ASHA Approved CE Provider will submit participant data to the ASHA CE Registry. The CE Registry grants ASHA CEUs and keeps track of all continuing education courses you’ve completed through ASHA’s network of Approved Continuing Education Providers in years where the applicable fee was paid.
Please keep in mind that only ASHA Certified CE Providers, as approved by ASHA Continuing Education (CE), are eligible to provide courses for ASHA CEUs. Courses that do not provide ASHA CEUs are not eligible for inclusion on your ASHA CE Registry transcript.
4. Know About The Costs
The cost of a CEU is determined by a number of factors, including:
> Your state
> The type of course (community college, webinar, online written etc.)
> Whether you go to an event, such as an out-of-state ASHA convention
> Seminars in other cities (sometimes multi-day)
There are certain ASHA CEUs available for free. Typically, this occurs when organisations who provide paid courses offer a “perk” so that you can see what it’s like to take courses from them.
Unfortunately, though, there aren’t enough free CEUs to get you through the next however many years of your career. And if you’re trying to become a genuinely competent clinician, you’re going to need to identify courses based on areas of expertise you’re lacking, not just which ones are free.
5. Manage Your Time Effectively
This phase demands focus, especially if you’re taking online courses for CEUs. Every three years, ASHA requires 3.0 CEUs, or 30 hours, to retain certification. While 36 months may seem like a long time, it can fly by; you don’t want to be scrambling for CEUs at the end of the period. Look for CEU material that interests you and schedule time to complete such courses.
