37-15-101. Purpose. The legislature declares it to be a policy of this state that in order to safeguard the public health, safety, and welfare and to protect the public from being misled by incompetent, unscrupulous, and unauthorized persons and to protect the public from unprofessional conduct by qualified speech-language pathologists and audiologists and to help ensure the availability of the highest possible quality speech-language pathology and audiology services to the people of this state with communicative disorders, it is necessary to provide regulatory authority over persons offering speech-language pathology or audiology services to the public.