You become an audiology assistant by meeting the education baseline, getting trained under a supervising audiologist, and adding the credentials that apply to you.
A high school diploma or GED is enough education for ASHA's national credential pathway, with the supervised hours and modules completing it, and for most assistants the training happens on the job.
Here are the steps in order, what each one requires, and how long each piece takes.
What do you need to become an audiology assistant?
ASHA — the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association — defines an audiology assistant as a person who, after appropriate training and demonstration of competency, performs delegated tasks that are prescribed, directed and supervised by a certified and/or licensed audiologist.
Every requirement on this page flows from that structure: you train for delegated work, and an audiologist directs it.
No single national gatekeeper sets your entry requirements — ASHA places responsibility for determining the applicable state and setting requirements on the supervising audiologist.
The education floor is low.
The American Academy of Audiology (AAA) sets the minimum for an audiology assistant at a high school diploma or equivalent, plus formal training and/or competency-based training in the facility.
ASHA adds that audiology assistants may or may not be regulated by state law, and that the supervising audiologist is responsible for determining the applicable requirements in their state and work setting.
In plain terms: before you enroll in anything or accept an offer, ask your state's audiology licensing board what applies to assistants there.
If you want a national credential on top, that is ASHA's C-AA — step 3 covers the full application.
For what the job itself involves day to day, the audiology assistant career guide walks through the duties, settings and supervision.
Verify the state rules before you enroll or accept an offer
Step 1: education baseline
Start from the education you already have.
ASHA's certification standards recognize three entry pathways: a bachelor's degree in communication sciences and disorders (CSD); a non-CSD college degree, a high school diploma or a GED; or a military job series awarding a certificate in audiology or ENT.
Each pathway carries its own supervised-hour requirement for certification: 500 hours with the CSD bachelor's, 1,000 hours for a non-CSD degree, high school diploma or GED, and none for a military audiology/ENT certificate.
- CSD bachelor's: 500 supervised hours of patient services.
- Non-CSD degree, high school diploma or GED: 1,000 supervised hours.
- Military certificate (audiology/ENT): no supervised-hour requirement.
A high school diploma or GED is genuinely enough to start: ASHA's certification pathway accepts it, provided you also complete ASHA's online audiology education modules (or equivalent) and the 1,000 supervised hours.
The CSD route has a second use.
ASHA notes that someone with an undergraduate CSD degree can often work as an audiology assistant while waiting for graduate school admission.
If the AuD is the goal, assistant work can keep you in a clinical setting while you apply.
Step 2: training on the job or through a program
Most training happens where you work.
ASHA's Practice Portal states that most audiology assistants receive their education and training on-site, from their supervising audiologist or employer, rather than in a formal program.
In practice that collapses two steps into one: the job search and the training are the same move, because you learn the work while a qualified audiologist supervises it.
ASHA's career-pathway material lists on-the-job training, military training and training as a hearing conservationist among the ways assistants start, and notes formal training options are fewer than they are for speech-language pathology assistants.
Formal programs do exist, with a caveat.
ASHA keeps a list of self-identified training programs for audiology assistants — Oklahoma State University's audiology assistant certificate is one listed example — and states that the programs have not been reviewed or evaluated by ASHA.
Placement on the list, ASHA says, is not an endorsement.
Whatever the route, the closest thing to a set syllabus is ASHA's scope of practice.
Its 2022 scope document organizes delegable assistant work into four duty areas and 32 tasks, spanning testing without interpretation, hearing device checks and minor repairs, and clinic operations such as stocking, recordkeeping and infection control.
Step 3: certification and state registration (when they apply)
Two different things sit in this step: ASHA's national credential, which is voluntary, and your state's own rules, which may or may not require assistants to register or hold a license.
You choose whether to pursue the first; the second you confirm before you work.
The credential is the C-AA — Certified Audiology Assistant — established under ASHA's 2020 Standards for ASHA Audiology Assistants Certification.
ASHA describes the C-AA as a national, voluntary credential: it is not interchangeable with state licensing laws, and it does not automatically qualify the holder for state licensure or registration.
Eligibility runs through the three pathways from step 1, each with its own supervised-hour count.
The hours can come from an academic program, from supervised on-the-job work, or both.
Whoever supervises those hours must hold ASHA's CCC-A, have the equivalent of nine months of full-time clinical experience, and have completed 2 hours of continuing education in clinical supervision.
Any hours completed on or after January 1, 2020 must also have been supervised by an ASHA-certified audiologist.
Every applicant completes three 1-hour prerequisite courses — ethics, universal safety precautions, and patient confidentiality (HIPAA/FERPA) — no more than 2 years before applying.
They do not have to be ASHA courses.
On the high school and GED pathway, ASHA's own module set is one way to meet that education requirement: 10 online modules, listed by ASHA at 3.5 hours, $49 in the ASHA Store.
Then comes the ASHA Assistants Certification Exam: 100 multiple-choice questions, administered by Prometric at U.S. test centers or online with live proctoring.
The current passing score for audiology assistants is 162.
Costs, as listed by ASHA on October 12, 2026: $249 for initial certification, a fee that includes the exam and up to two years of certification, then $125 a year to renew, due December 31.
Certification is kept current on 3-year maintenance intervals: at the end of each interval a C-AA holder completes the C-AA Maintenance of Certification Assessment (MOCA), alongside the annual renewal fees.
The state layer is separate — and it is the part that can be mandatory.
What states ask of assistants varies, and ASHA places responsibility for determining the applicable state requirements on the supervising audiologist.
Texas shows what one state's version looks like.
The state licenses an 'assistant in audiology': a $150 application buys a two-year initial license.
Applicants need at least a high school diploma plus a CAOHC certificate — or a bachelor's degree in communicative sciences and disorders instead — plus the Texas jurisprudence exam and an approved supervision plan with a licensed audiologist.
Other states write different terms.
Treat Texas as an example of the kind of requirements that appear, not a template, and check your own state before you count any hours or accept a title.
The C-AA is not a state license
Step 4: applying and getting hired
Search under both names.
In ASHA's 2025 Audiology Assistant Survey — a small survey, with 28 audiology assistant respondents — the job titles reported included Audiology Assistant (42%) and Audiology Technician (23%), alongside titles such as Patient Care Coordinator, Hearing Screening Technician and Office Manager.
ASHA itself cautions that the survey's percentages may not be representative, so read those titles as evidence the market uses both labels, not as a census.
Look where audiologists work.
ASHA's how-to-become material lists schools, clinics, private practices, VA facilities and military bases as assistant settings, where state law allows, and the scope document adds long-term care and skilled nursing facilities, home health, and telepractice or rural outreach.
The VA runs its own track.
It posts audiology support jobs as Health Technician (Audiology) in OPM's GS-0640 Health Aid and Technician series, the federal series covering support duties to health personnel including audiologists.
The VA qualification standard asks for U.S. citizenship (with limited exceptions), English proficiency, and either relevant experience or two academic years above high school with at least 12 semester hours related to the position, or a combination.
Make your supervision visible when you apply.
Name who supervised you, how many supervised hours you have, and whether an ASHA-certified audiologist provided the supervision — under ASHA's standards, hours completed on or after January 1, 2020 count toward the C-AA only with that.
If you have no supervised hours yet, ask the question directly in the interview: does the practice train on site, and would a CCC-A-certified audiologist supervise your work?
Those two answers decide whether a first job also builds toward the credential.
On pay, be skeptical of what you read online.
ASHA notes that audiology assistants are not specifically listed in the BLS O*NET database, so the role has no dedicated BLS occupation.
Hiring for a clinic instead?
You can post a job on our hiring hub.
How long does it take?
The timeline is really two clocks.
The coursework clocks are short and fixed.
The supervised hours are the long one, and they move as fast as your job search does.
The fixed pieces, from ASHA's own standards and fee pages:
- Education modules (high school and GED pathway): ASHA's set is 10 online modules, listed by ASHA at 3.5 hours.
- Prerequisite courses: three 1-hour courses, finished no more than 2 years before you apply.
- Supervised hours: 500 with a CSD bachelor's, 1,000 on the non-CSD, high school or GED pathways — earned in an academic program, on the job, or both.
- Application review: ASHA says a review can take up to 6 weeks from the date the last document is received.
- Exam window: once approved, you have 365 days to register for and take the exam.
- Retests: up to two more attempts within one year of initial approval, at a $99 retest fee each time.
State registration runs on its own calendar where it exists — Texas's two-year initial assistant license, with its own application cycle, is one example.
What shortcuts nothing is the supervised practice: the hour counts are fixed, but how fast they accrue depends on finding supervised work — a job or an academic program.
The practical accelerator is to get into a supervised role first and let the hours run during paid work.
Becoming an audiology technician vs assistant
For entry purposes, audiology technician and audiology assistant are the same door.
The education floor is the same, ASHA's C-AA pathways are the same, and each state's rules are its own — Texas, for one, writes its license for an 'assistant in audiology' by that name.
The labels come from different bodies.
ASHA and the Academy of Doctors of Audiology use audiology assistant, while AAA adopted audiology technician as the title for its assistant membership category in 2016.
AAA's position statement also uses audiology assistant generically, covering titles such as audiology aide and audiologic technician, and limits the term to direct patient-care tasks rather than clerical or financial roles.
The VA posts the work under a third label entirely, Health Technician (Audiology).
So read the duty list on a posting rather than the title — in ASHA's survey, people doing this work reported titles running from Audiology Assistant to Patient Care Coordinator and Office Manager.
For the title-by-title comparison — who uses which word, and what it means for the work — our audiology assistant career guide breaks the labels down in detail.
Career information, not licensing, legal, medical or tax advice. Assistant requirements come from state law and from ASHA's certification standards; confirm current requirements with your state's audiology licensing board or agency and with ASHA.