My Top Sites for Free CEU's

If you're like me, you might love the *idea* of continuing education, but finding the time and money for it is the hard part! In my state (PA), SLP's have historically been required to have a Teaching Certificate, which mandates 180 hours of continuing education every 5 years (that's 36 hours per year), along with the hours we need for ASHA and our state licenses. It can be a headache trying to figure out what counts for which license! Thankfully, I have found some great sites that offer online webinars and courses for free. 

​Disclaimer: The sites presented in this post provide ASHA-accepted CE hours as far as I understand them; however, it is your professional responsibility to ascertain which hours will be accepted before beginning a course. Information on what counts for ASHA hours can be found here. *

Sarah Wu at Speech is Beautiful wrote a great article on the Top 10 FREE CEU's for Speech Pathologists,  so I won't list all of those here. I've found some additional sites that may help you as you try to improve your mind and keep up those CE hours at the same time! 

Remember, .1 Continuing Education (CE) hour= 1 ASHA Certificate Maintenance Hour (CMH).

• Presence Learning offers some excellent webinars on topics salient to Speech and Special Education throughout the year. Generally, the webinars are worth 0.5-1.5 CE hours. You do need to sign up for their newsletter in order to view the webinars, but it has lots of interesting information. If you use your ASHA number when you sign up, these hours will automatically be added to your ASHA CE Registry. 

 

• AFIRM (Autism Focused Intervention Resources and Modules) from the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute and Office of Special Education Programs. These modules are very well produced and have excellent resources and handouts. From the website: "AFIRM Modules are designed to help you learn the step-by-step process of planning for, using, and monitoring an EBP with learners with ASD from birth to 22 years of age." These courses will NOT automatically show up on your CE registry, but they do count toward the 30 hours ASHA requires. The courses are worth 2 CMHs unless otherwise noted, and are as follows: 
  1. Antecedent-Based Intervention 
  2. Discrete Trial Training  (3 CMHs)
  3. Exercise 
  4. Functional Behavior Assessment
  5. Modeling 
  6. Peer-Mediated Instruction and Intervention 
  7. Picture Exchange Communication System (3 CMHs)
  8. Prompting
  9. Reinforcement (3 CMHs)
  10. Social Narratives
  11. Social Skills Training
  12. Task Analysis
  13. Time Delay
  14. Visual Supports

 

• Bilinguistics is an excellent therapy company that offers paid CE courses in many areas including treating and evaluating bilingual students; collaboration; and even treatment in clients with VPI and Cleft Lip/Palate. If you sign up for their newsletter, you get a FREE e-book on Narrative-Based Storybook Intervention as well as your pick of any of their CEU courses for free. They also offer 3 different Free .1 CEU (1 hour) classes. I've found their newsletter to be quite helpful and informative, and the eBook was very professional and easy to use. 

 

• The Leaders Project from the Teachers College at Columbia University offers 4 different courses for free. These courses WILL be reported to ASHA and show up on your CE Registry, if you have one. The courses are:
  • Grammar Fundamentals in a Pluralistic Society (.5 CE hours)
  • Differential Diagnosis in Preschool Evaluations (.6 CE hours)
  • Disorder, Difference, or Gap: A School Aged Disability Evaluation (.35 CE hours)
  • Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate EI Evaluations (.45 CE hours)
  • and one in Spanish: La terapia del habla para la fisura del paladar: Evaluación y tratamiento (.4 CE hours)

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• The University of Texas at Dallas Callier Center for Communication DisordersDr Edyth Strand video on Childhood Apraxia of Speech. The video DOES count for ASHA CEU's and is worth .45 CEUs (4.5 CMHs).  The video will cover: 
  • The core principles of assessment and treatment including Principles of Motor Learning (PML).
  • How CAS differs from other motor speech disorders and more common developmental phonological disorders.
  • Effective methods to differentially diagnose CAS and develop a plan of treatment that follows principles of motor learning is also covered.
  • Research to guide evidence-based practice
  • Treatment for different age groups and different levels of severity of CAS is discussed.

• Voice and Swallow Clinic Lecture Series from the University of Wisconsin. Through December 2019 (as of December 2018), view 6 different lectures on various topics relating to voice. 
  • Tracheostomy and Dysphagia (available through 1/18/2019)
  • Research Design and Statistical Approaches in the Areas of Voice and Swallow (available through 2/8/2019)
    
  • Creating a Gender-Inclusive Practice: Medical and Psychological Perspectives (available through 4/5/2019)
    
  • Personalizing the Therapy Experience for Patients with Head and Neck Cancer (available through 5/31/2019) 
  • Evidence-Based Assessment and Treatment of Gender Expansive Voice (available through 4/26/2019)
  • Systemic Approach to Assessment of Infant Feeding and Swallowing (available through 12/13/2019)

• *Only for Pennsylvania therapists*: EITA- the Early Intervention Technical Assistance Online Learning Portal offers many free courses covering topics related to Early Intervention. All courses are worth 6 CMHs (which count toward Infant/Toddler Training hours as well as Act 48/Teaching Certification Hours) unless otherwise noted:
  • Foundations of Infant/Toddler Services in Early Intervention:
    • IFSP Development
    • Family-Centered Intervention
    • Routines-Based Intervention
  • Early Intervention Orientation
  • Service Delivery
    • Assistive Technology for Access and Participation in Early Childhood Settings
    • Orientation to Deafness and Hearing Loss
    • Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning (9 CMHs)
    • Annual Training Series (1 CMH)

If you follow me on social media, you may have seen that I earned nearly 29 hours in the about 2 months, all for FREE!

To make keeping track of the hours easier, I used my CE Tracker, available FREE from my TPT store. It automatically tallies my hours, as well as allowing me to note which count for each type of license (ASHA, CE registry, PA State license, etc.) 

I hope these are helpful! Do you know of any other free CEU providers I should add? If so, post to the comments or send me an email (link above)!