Three training routes anchor this page: a college certificate program, ASHA's own online module set, and supervised hours picked up on the job.
None of the three is a national requirement — the C-AA credential ASHA offers is a voluntary one — but each route maps to a specific certification pathway, and states that license assistants add training rules of their own.
Here is what each route involves, what it costs and how long it takes.
Do you need formal training to work as an audiology assistant?
Our research found no national training requirement standing between you and this job.
ASHA's credential for audiology assistants — the Certified Audiology Assistant, C-AA — is a voluntary national credential, and ASHA says outright that it is not interchangeable with state licensing laws and does not automatically qualify its holder for licensure or registration.
What you must have is decided by the state you work in.
Where a state licenses or registers assistants, its rules — not ASHA's — are the ones to satisfy.
Texas shows what a state route looks like: it licenses an 'assistant in audiology' through the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, with a $150 application fee for a two-year initial license.
The education bar there is at least a high school diploma plus a CAOHC certificate, or a bachelor's degree in communicative sciences and disorders as the substitute, alongside the state's jurisprudence exam and an approved supervision plan with a licensed audiologist.
The title also shifts with the body doing the naming.
ASHA and the Academy of Doctors of Audiology say 'audiology assistant'; the American Academy of Audiology began using 'audiology technician' for an assistant membership category in 2016, and its position statement folds in titles such as audiology aide and audiologic technician.
The training question follows the worker under each of these labels.
For the work itself, the audiology assistant career guide covers the role end to end; this page stays on how you get trained for it.
State rules come first
Which audiology assistant certificate programs exist?
Enrollable training takes two shapes in the programs we researched: college certificate programs, and the online module set ASHA sells itself.
One published example of a college certificate sits at Georgia State University's Perimeter College.
Its Audiology Assistant Certificate requires a minimum of 13 credit hours and is built to finish in one year, combining coursework with supervised clinical experience.
The college offers it on its Atlanta and Clarkston campuses and online, and frames the program as preparation for ASHA's assistant certification.
Other university programs appear on a list ASHA keeps of audiology assistant training programs.
Nova Southeastern University's Audiology Assistant Program and Oklahoma State University's audiology assistant certificate are two listed examples.
Read that list carefully.
ASHA states that the programs on it are self-identified, that they have not been reviewed or evaluated by ASHA for the technical training of audiology assistants, and that placement on the list is not an endorsement.
ASHA's own Audiology Assistant Education Modules are the second shape: a 10-module online set priced at $49 that satisfies the education requirement for Eligibility Pathway 2.
The module topics read like a job description in miniature: rules and regulations, scope of practice, audiology basics, patient care, clinic maintenance, ethics, hearing loss and prevention, amplification and device maintenance.
They are coursework rather than a degree, and ASHA notes they do not earn ASHA CEUs.
Whichever program you look at, ask one question first: does it meet a certification pathway's education requirement?
ASHA's Pathway 2 accepts an equivalent associate degree or certificate program in place of its own modules, so a program's equivalence — not its marketing — is what matters.
How long does audiology assistant training take?
The classroom part is quick to describe; the supervised hours set your calendar.
Georgia State's certificate is designed to complete in one year, at a minimum of 13 credit hours.
Our research found no published completion time for the module set: the course page we read lists the modules, the topics and the $49 price, so treat any duration quoted elsewhere as unverified.
Certification runs on the hours.
Eligibility Pathway 1 requires 500 hours of supervised field work; Pathway 2 requires 1,000.
Every pathway adds the same three 1-hour prerequisite courses, completed within the two years before you apply.
Because field work means hours providing patient services within the ASHA scope of practice for audiology assistants, the wall-clock answer depends on how much supervised work your workplace can give you each week.
The same 1,000 hours is a different calendar for a full-time assistant and an evening one.
Online vs in-person audiology assistant training
The coursework goes online easily.
The hours do not.
ASHA's modules are online by design, and Georgia State's certificate is offered online as well as on its Atlanta and Clarkston campuses.
Supervised field work is the opposite: those hours are defined as patient services delivered within the ASHA scope of practice for audiology assistants, under an audiologist's supervision.
There is a hard date attached, too.
Field-work hours completed on or after January 1, 2020 count toward certification only if an ASHA-certified audiologist supervised them.
So an online program still ends in person.
You either already work somewhere an ASHA-certified audiologist can supervise your hours, or you complete the program's supervised clinical experience — the component Georgia State's certificate combines with its coursework.
That is also why a self-paced online course, bought and finished from your sofa, does not by itself satisfy a certification pathway's field-work requirement.
On-the-job training in a practice
The route with no enrollment at all is training inside the practice that hires you.
ASHA's C-AA is a voluntary credential, not a national gate a newcomer clears before starting, so a practice can build a new hire's skills at the bench under the supervising audiologist's direction.
What you are allowed to do while you learn is set by state rules and by what the supervising audiologist delegates — which is why the same job title can cover different tasks in different states.
The supervisor's credentials matter as much as your hours.
Hours providing patient services count toward certification field work only when the audiologist supervising you is ASHA-certified — the rule that applies to every hour completed on or after January 1, 2020 — and the hours are attested on the application rather than documented separately.
On-the-job training carries no tuition and no module fee — its price is time.
What it does not hand you by itself is the credential: that still runs through an ASHA pathway, its education requirement, the supervised hours and the national exam — though hours logged under an ASHA-certified audiologist count toward the field-work requirement.
Where a state licenses assistants, on-the-job training turns formal: Texas's approved supervision plan with a licensed audiologist is part of the assistant license itself, not an optional extra.
Seeing the other side of the desk helps too.
What an audiologist does explains the licensed work your training supports, and the tasks that stay with the audiologist.
Training needed for the ASHA C-AA credential
ASHA's credential for audiology assistants is the C-AA.
Earning it takes three things: the education requirements of one of three eligibility pathways, a national exam, and a commitment to abide by ASHA's Assistants Code of Conduct.
Pathway 1 fits applicants who already hold a bachelor's degree in communication sciences and disorders.
It requires 500 hours of supervised field work and the three 1-hour prerequisite courses.
Pathway 2 is the route for applicants without a CSD bachelor's degree.
It runs on a non-CSD college degree, a high school diploma or a GED, plus ASHA's 10-module online set or an equivalent associate degree or certificate program.
Pathway 2 also carries the larger field-work requirement: 1,000 supervised hours, plus the same three prerequisite courses.
Pathway 3 covers active-duty military members and veterans who hold an audiology or ENT military job-series certificate.
The three prerequisite courses are named: ethics, universal safety precautions and patient confidentiality.
Each is one hour, and all three must fall within the two years before you apply.
The supervision rule is the one to watch.
Any field-work hours completed on or after January 1, 2020 must have been supervised by an ASHA-certified audiologist — hours supervised by someone else do not count.
The one ASHA cost our research confirmed is $49 for the module set.
Our research could not confirm the C-AA exam and application fees, so price both on ASHA's certification pages before you budget.
College certificates budget the same way: Georgia State publishes the 13-credit minimum, and the per-credit tuition rate is the college's own figure to check in its catalog.
The national exam and the Assistants Code of Conduct are ASHA's side of the credential; their details sit in ASHA's certification standards rather than in any training program.
Career information, not licensing, legal, medical, clinical, billing or coding advice — confirm current training, certification and state licensing requirements with ASHA and your state's audiology licensing board.
Confirm before you enroll or log hours