Advocacy and Understanding ASHA’s Proposed Changes

Michelle Dawson, MS, CCC-SLP, CLC, BCS-S, serves as a speech-language pathologist with Wolfe Speech Therapy, LLC, in Staunton, VA, and adjunct professor with North Carolina Central University (NCCU) in Durham, NC. Additionally, she is the acclaimed host of “First Bite: Fed, Fun, Functional,” a weekly speech therapy podcast that addresses “all thangs” of pediatric speech therapy and is presented by SpeechTherapyPD.com. Michelle authored "Chasing the Swallow: Truth, Science, and Hope for Pediatric Feeding and Swallowing Disorders." She is an accomplished lecturer, traveling across the nation delivering courses on best practices for the evaluation and treatment of medically complex infants, toddlers, and children with respect to their pediatric oropharyngeal dysphagia, pediatric feeding disorder, as well as language acquisition within the framework of Early Intervention. She currently volunteers as the Vice President of Speech-Language Pathology (March 2025 – 2027), co-chair for the Speech-Language-Hearing Association of Virginia (SHAV) Dysphagia and Pediatric Feeding Disorder Group (2023 – present), and on the convention committee for the 2025 Annual SHAV Convention. She has previously served twice as the Topic Chair for the Pediatric Feeding and Swallowing Disorders Committee for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Annual Convention, as the Treasurer for the Council of State Association Presidents (CSAP), is a Past President of the South Carolina Speech, Language, and Hearing Association (SCSHA), a board of trustee member for the Communication Disorder Foundation of Virginia (CDF), a graduate of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s Leadership Development Program (ASHA LDP), a recipient of both the PFD Systems Innovator Award and the Pediatric Feeding Disorder Awareness Champion from Feeding Matters, a recipient of the Louis M. DiCarlo Award for Outstanding Clinical Achievement from the SCSHA, a recipient of the State Clinical Achievement Award from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s Foundation, recognized as an ASHA Innovator, and eleven-time recipient of ASHA’s ACE Award for continuing education.

Erin Forward, MSP, CCC-SLP, CLC, is a speech-language pathologist and certified lactation counselor. Erin works as an SLP at Carolina Milestones. She has advanced training in pediatric feeding and swallowing disorders, early language, AAC, and trauma, specifically for medically complex children. Erin holds an Expert DIR®Floortime Provider Certification and is a TBRI® Trained Practitioner. She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a Bachelor's degree in CSD and Psychology and graduated from the University of South Carolina with her Master’s in Speech Pathology. She is the regular co-host of "First Bite: A Speech Therapy Podcast" with Michelle Dawson, MS, CCC-SLP, CLC, where she shares her experiences and evidence-based practices from her time working in early intervention/home health, NICU/PICU, GI clinic, and outpatient clinic settings. For her dedication to the field, she was awarded an ASHA Distinguished Early Career Professional Certificate in 2021 and is a graduate of the ASHA LDP program.

Fé Gonzalez Murray is an Associate Clinical Professor in the Communication Sciences and Disorders department at Northern Arizona University (NAU), where she teaches graduate courses and supervises clinical practicums. She facilitates the clinic's multilingual evaluation team, supervises bilingual Spanish/ sessions, and provides training for parents and school districts at the state and national level. Prior to joining the NAU faculty, Dr. Murray worked as a bilingual speech-language pathologist for over 25 years in various settings, most notably in public schools near the Navajo Nation and in communities with high Latine representation. Her clinical and research interests emphasize culturally and linguistically appropriate practices, the impact of cultural values on treatment, cultural reciprocity in the clinical setting, effective use of interpreters, and client/family empowerment.

Archie Soelaeman (she/her) is the Manager of School Speech Language Services and a speech-language pathologist at Helping Hand School in Countryside, Illinois, a therapeutic day school. She provides services to students with a primary diagnosis of autism and collaborates with a multidisciplinary team on a daily basis. She has over 16 years of experience in this setting. Her clinical interests include autism spectrum, augmentative and alternative communication, and apraxia. Archie is also a co-president of the Asian Pacific Islander Speech-Language-Hearing Caucus, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization whose primary mission is to make connections among API groups, share common concerns in education, and advocate for quality speech and hearing service delivery for individuals across diverse API communities. Archie is a native speaker of Bahasa Indonesia who also has conversational proficiency in Spanish.

Amy Hobek, PhD, CCC-SLP, is an Associate Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Cincinnati. Her teaching and scholarship focus on equity and inclusion, with an emphasis on valuing and legitimizing cultural and linguistic variations in these areas within individuals, families, and communities. She is also a licensed speech-language pathologist, providing clinic supervision to graduate students in a culturally and linguistically diverse preschool setting on UC’s campus. She is a co-chair of the Cultural Humility Task Force of the National Black Association of Speech Language and Hearing. She serves as a topic co-chair for Equity, Inclusion, and Cultural-Linguistic Diversity at the ASHA 2025 Convention.

Professor Reem Khamis (also known as Reem Khamis-Dakwar) is Professor Emerita at Adelphi University and Chair of the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Long Island University (LIU), Brooklyn. Her expertise centers on language development, processing, and clinical services within the sociolinguistic context of diglossia and diverse populations. Dr. Khamis is co-founder of the Journal of the Critical Study of Communication and Disability (JCSCD) and a co-founding member of the Speech, Language, and Hearing Scientists Equity Action Collective. She currently serves as Language Section Editor for the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research (JSLHR). She received the Excellence in Diversity Award in 2020 from the Council of Academic Programs in Communication Sciences and Disorders (CAPCSD).

Dr. Vishnu KK Nair, PhD, is a lecturer in the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences at the University of Reading, UK. He currently co-leads the health theme of the Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism, University of Reading. His current research utilizes critical, decolonial, and more-than-human approaches to understanding communication and disability. He is committed to building a body of interdisciplinary and anti-colonial scholarship that de-pathologizes communication disability and focuses on understanding and affirming communication variability. His teaching and research have won multiple teaching excellence, research supervision, and best student dissertation awards.

Betty Yu is a Professor in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences and a Co-Managing Editor of the Journal of Critical Study of Communication and Disability. Her research and clinical interests are in how communication access among racially-minoritized, disabled children in multilingual communities is shaped by institutional practices/policies, family socialization, and dominant ideologies about race/language/disability. She also focuses on issues of equity in the field of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences (SLHS), particularly as related to the systemic influences of raciolinguistic discrimination, ableism, and pathologization.