In the early 1960s, SLP leaders described trips to Capitol Hill as terrifying, migraine-inducing encounters with a world they didn’t yet understand. A few decades later, the profession had built enough political infrastructure to partner with McDonald’s and influence federal definitions of disability.
This episode traces how speech-language pathology moved from academic outsider to institutional insider and what was gained, lost, and locked into place along the way.
We explore:
- How federal rehabilitation funding after WWII and Vietnam reshaped who counted as a “qualified provider.”
- The quiet fight to keep language from being absorbed into the definition of Specific Learning Disability and why that boundary still causes friction today.
- How the CCC shifted from a professional marker to a billable requirement in Medicare and Medicaid.
- What it actually takes, organizationally, to put accessibility tools into 8,700 restaurants nationwide.
Sources:
- Malone, R. (1999). The first 75 years: An oral history of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
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