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American Speech–Language–Hearing Association

organization

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ4745140 ↗
Source-derived summary

The American Speech–Language–Hearing Association (ASHA) is a professional association for speech–language pathologists, audiologists, and speech, language, and hearing scientists in the United States and internationally. The association reported over 234,000 members and affiliates in its 2023 report.

The association's national office is located at 2200 Research Boulevard, Rockville, Maryland. The organization also has an office on Capitol Hill.

As of January 2022, Vicki R. Deal-Williams serves as the association's chief executive officer.

History

ASHA was founded in 1925 as the American Academy of Speech Correction in the home of Lee Edward Travis in Iowa City, Iowa.

The charter members were Margaret Gray Blanton, Smiley Blanton, Richard Carmen Borden, Frederick Warner Brown, Mary A Brownell, Alvin Clayton Busse, Pauline Beatrice Camp, Jane Dorsey (Zimmerman), Eudora Porter Estabrook, Mabel Farrington Gifford, Max Aaron Goldstein, Ruth Green, Laura Heilman, Elmer Lawton Kenyon, Mabel V Lacey, Elizabeth Dickinson McDowell, Thyrza Nichols, Samuel Dowse Robbins, Sara Mae Stinchfield (Hawk), Jane Bliss Taylor, Charles Kenneth Thomas, Lee Edward Travis, Lavilla Amelia Ward, Sina Fladeland Waterhouse, and Robert William West.

In 1927, they changed their name to American Society for the Study of Disorders of Speech, in 1934 to the American Speech Correction Association, in 1947 to the American Speech and Hearing Association.

The current name was adopted in 1978.

Council for Academic Accreditation

The Council for Academic Accreditation in Audiology and Speech–Language Pathology (CAA) is the accreditation unit of the ASHA. Founded over 100 years ago by American universities and secondary schools, CAA established standards for graduate program accreditation that meet entry-level preparation in the speech and hearing field.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “American Speech–Language–Hearing Association” is organization. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through American, Speech and Language, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2023, 2022, 1925, 1927—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, American, Speech and Language is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “organization” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4745140. VIAF identifies the subject as 126659862. The Library of Congress control number is n79115658. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2023, 2022, 1925 and 1927.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “American Speech–Language–Hearing Association”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow American Speech–Language–Hearing Association primary sources, American Speech–Language–Hearing Association archive and American research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “American Speech–Language–Hearing Association”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “American Speech–Language–Hearing Association” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.