Peter Responds to Dr. Tommie Robinson Jr., President of ASHA
Peter Responds to Dr. Tommie Robinson Jr., President of ASHA
[Editor's note - The letter below was a response by Peter Reitzes to a letter from Tommie Robinson Jr ., PhD, CCC-SLP, President of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association]
May 5, 2010
Dr. Robinson,
I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my letter.
On April 29, 2010 I wrote you [link to letter] and each member of the Board of Directors of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). I shared that “Recently I have come across some interesting marketing statements regarding the treatment of stuttering that are being made on publicly available websites.” I went on to share that some ASHA members and websites closely associated with ASHA members were marketing the treatment of stuttering with statements which included “[statement removed]” “1[statement removed]” and “[statement removed].”
I want to thank you for your willingness to review and investigate the matters I brought to your attention without receiving a formal complaint. I believe this is a step in the right direction for ASHA.
On May 4, 2010 you responded to my letter. You wrote, “I did take some time to review some of the websites you cite in your letter. On quick review, I do not think these statements, within the context of the website, rise to the level of an ethics violation.” If I understand you correctly, you have said that in your role as the President of ASHA you feel it is acceptable and ethical for ASHA members to market stuttering treatments to the public using statements which appear, on the surface, to promise specific outcomes (such as “[statements removed]”). If I have misunderstood you, I do hope that you will take the time to clarify your position.
In your May 4 letter, you wrote “It is neither practical nor is it possible for ASHA to police the overall marketing and advertising practices of all of its members.” As I said on May 3 in a letter to Neil Sheppard, “If one believes that the way an organization spends its money reflects its priorities, one may rightly or wrongly assume that currently, ethical standards are not a high priority for ASHA.” If actively protecting consumers was a high priority for ASHA, it seems possible if not probable that the resources and thinking necessary to properly focus on marketing related issues would become available. It takes only a few minutes to review websites and see if they fit our established Code of Ethics with regard to promising outcomes to potential clients. If our organization with its paid and unpaid officers does not have the determination to follow through on our ethics policy then the policy itself and the values it is supposed to represent are quite meaningless. To suggest that it is up to “other” ASHA members to file ethics complaints, while officers of the organization and its ethics committee have no responsibility for this is unacceptable.
It is disappointing that the other members of ASHA’s Board of Directors have not responded to my letter. Perhaps Charles Van Riper was correct when he wrote in the ASHA Magazine in 1989, “I feel we have lost much of the dedication and caring that once was the hallmark of our profession…Once we had a calling; now we have a job.”
Sincerely,
Peter Reitzes, MA CCC-SLP
Co-host: StutterTalk.com podcast
Posted by StutterTalk at 10/24/2007 4:19 PM 
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: stuttertalk ethics stuttering american speech language hearing association stutter stammer marketing tommie robinosn stutter talk asha stammering
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: stuttertalk ethics stuttering american speech language hearing association stutter stammer marketing tommie robinosn stutter talk asha stammering
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