Conflicts of Interest and Disclosure: Information for Instructors

If you are an instructor in a course offered by an ASHA Approved CE Provider, the following elements of the Standards for ASHA CE Providers pertain to you.

• Course content must focus on the science and/or contemporary practice of audiology, speech-language pathology, and speech, language, and hearing sciences and must reflect best practices.
• You should not attempt to persuade learners to favor, use, promote, or purchase a particular product, equipment, device, or service.
• If a course is focused on teaching the theoretical aspects of a product or service and/or the details of a product’s operation, you cannot sell or promote that product or service during the course. Likewise, if you use products, equipment, or devices in conducting a course, you cannot engage in marketing, promoting, or selling during the course or in the space/place where the course is being held.
• If you teach a course focused on one product or service, the Provider must disclose to learners prior to the course that there will be limited to no information provided about similar products or services. The Provider may ask you to include this in your disclosure to learners.
• You must disclose, during course planning, relevant relationships or lack thereof to the Provider and to learners at the start of the course. You need to disclose only those relationships that are relevant and that may influence course content and design.
• A relationship may be relevant if there is a traceable, significant, and logical connection between the relationship and the course content or course design decisions.
• Relevant relationships may include:
  • receiving a salary, a royalty, intellectual property rights, a gift, a speaking fee, a consulting fee, an honorarium, ownership interest, or another financial benefit;
  • “contracted research” in which the institution receives the grant, the institution manages the funds, and the individual is the principal or named investigator on the grant; and
  • personal or professional roles, experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds.
• The Provider will review the submitted disclosures and follow up if they have questions.
• The Provider will create and publish disclosure statements.
• You’ll want to let the Provider know if there are changes to your published disclosures that occur before your presentation.
• Failure to participate in the disclosure process will disqualify you from being an instructor or a course planner.