Friday, December 6
6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m., PT
Seattle Convention Center, Summit Building, Level 5, Ballroom 1

The Awards Ceremony celebrates high achievements and excellence in the professions. Awards presented this evening include the Honors of the Association—ASHA's most prestigious award, which recognizes lifetime achievement—and ASHA Fellows, whose recipients' contributions are the cornerstones of the communication sciences and disorders (CSD) professions. ASHA will present additional awards to honor other members who have also contributed to the professions and to ASHA.

The Annie Glenn Award will also be presented. It is named after the late Annie Glenn, a devoted champion for people with communication disorders. It honors individuals or groups who are champions much like the award’s namesake. This year, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, an advocate for people who stutter and a former college basketball national champion who went on to play in the National Basketball Association will receive the Annie.

Today, Kidd-Gilchrist is the CEO of Change & Impact, a non-profit organization he founded in 2021. It is dedicated to improving health care access for individuals who stutter and expanding the resources available to them. Kidd-Gilchrist travels the country on the Change & Impact Stuttering Awareness Tour, speaking at universities and colleges; visiting children’s hospitals; conducting free continuing education programs and hosting events for individuals who stutter.

This year’s Annie recipient is also a voice for the stuttering community before federal and state legislators. Last year on Capitol Hill, he facilitated the establishment of the Bipartisan Unified Voices Caucus, which advocates for individuals with communication challenges and primarily focuses on stuttering. In 2024, Kentucky passed a state mandate that would require insurance plans to include coverage for habilitative and rehabilitative speech therapy for childhood stuttering—the first such requirement ever according to Change & Impact. Kidd-Gilchrist is continuing to advocate in bipartisan ways for similar results in eight other states.

Join us Friday evening as we honor the achievements of colleagues in the professions and present the Annie Glenn Award to our very special guest, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.

The Awards Ceremony is sponsored by Next Level Speech Therapy.

Tickets are not required for the Opening General Session, Awards Ceremony, or Closing General Session. Seating is offered on a first-come, first-served basis to full Convention registrants and one-day registrants, as applicable.