With the Fall 2020 academic year in full swing, we wanted to direct you to a resource provided by the Council for Clinical Certification in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology (CFCC) [the council who governs ASHA certification] regarding accommodations to meet Certificate of Clinical Certification in Audiology (CCC-A) and Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology (CCC-SLP) eligibility requirements.
Recently, the CFCC extended all accommodations until June 30, 2021.
CFCC Allowances for Graduate Students: Telepractice with Telesupervision*
Graduate student clinicians in both professions who are enrolled in CAA-accredited and CAA-candidacy programs may engage in service delivery through telepractice as outlined below:
- Telepractice and telesupervision may be used to obtain the required supervised clinical practicum from March 16, 2020 – June 30, 2021. It is up to the discretion of the graduate program to determine how many hours can be earned through telepractice.
- Multiple students may participate in the same session. Each student will earn the full hour toward the completion of their clinical practicum. Program and clinic directors have the authority to determine how many students can appropriately take part in an online teletherapy session with one client, keeping quality patient care, safety, and optimal clinical education in mind.
- Understand that clinical educators may supervise more than one telepractice session concurrently. Clinical educators must be available 100% of the time (“line of sight”) to each session and must provide a minimum of 25% direct supervision of the total contact time with each client/patient (similar to in-person supervision requirements).
Please refer to asha.org/Certification/COVID-19-Guidance-From-CFCC for details on your program’s responsibilities regarding telepractice considerations, and for a complete list of what activities can count toward supervised clinical practicum.
CFCC Allowances for Clinical Fellows: “Work Week” Requirement
Remember: Clinical Fellowship is after graduation. You are no longer a student during your Clinical Fellowship experience.
ASHA certification standards require a CF experience to be a minimum of 36 weeks and 1,260 hours. There is a “work week” requirement that states at least 80% of a Clinical Fellow’s major responsibilities during the CF experience must be spent in direct client/patient contact (e.g., assessment, evaluation, screening, treatment, clinical research activities, family/client consultations, recordkeeping, report writing, and/or counseling).
The CFCC has relaxed this “work week” requirement between March 16, 2020 – June 30, 2021, to allow Clinical Fellows who are unable to be on site or provide services through telepractice to continue to count hours toward their required 1,260 hours.
This means that Clinical Fellows may count all hours involved in case management, even if they are not directly with clients/patients in activities such as creating home programs, virtual consultations with clients/patients or their families, allied health providers, teachers, or Child Study Team members. These activities must be permissible by your employer, CF mentor, and/or state licensing laws. Clinical Fellows may continue to count time spent in “other” activities such as professional development, as long as it does not exceed 20% of their current work week. For example, if a Clinical Fellow is able to work 20 hours per week in the ways below, an additional 4 hours may be spent in other activities.
The CFCC is permitting Clinical Fellows to use telepractice with telesupervision* without needing to obtain prior authorization from the CFCC through June 30, 2021.
Stay Updated
For more details and the most up-to-date information from the CFCC regarding this situation, please check out asha.org/Certification/COVID-19-Guidance-From-CFCC.
Please contact certification@asha.org with any questions.
*For the purposes of ASHA Certification, the use of telepractice and telesupervision is only permitted when all parties are located within the United States. The CFCC is unable to authorize the use of telepractice and telesupervision across borders.