What is it about?

This article explores the attitudes of the founders of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, as expressed by their writings, showing that they exhibited a range of negative biases, such as racism and elitism. We compare their beliefs to those of contemporaries who offered alternative, less biased, views.. We argue that the founders had choices, and their decisions negatively impacted the development of our profession.

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Why is it important?

The centennial of the founding of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association will be in 2025; it is timely to re-examine founding concepts and to consider how we can avoid the mistakes of the past.

Perspectives

Investigating history has been an opportunity to better understand the assumptions of my field.

Lynne Hewitt
Ithaca College

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: How the Charter Members of ASHA Responded to the Social and Political Circumstances of Their Time, American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, May 2023, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA),
DOI: 10.1044/2022_ajslp-22-00273.
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