Partnering With Purpose: Building Equitable Research Collaborations With School-Based Speech-Language Pathologists

The research-to-practice gap in school-based speech-language pathology is compounded by a power differential between researchers and practitioners that often positions speech-language pathologists (SLPs) as passive participants in research rather than active contributors to the research process. This tutorial provides dual-audience guidance for building equitable research partnerships between researchers and school-based SLPs. Recommendations are organized around the Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, Sustainment (EPIS) framework and grounded in community-based participatory research (CBPR) principles.

This tutorial synthesizes principles from implementation science, CBPR, and codesign literature to guide equitable partnership development across each stage of the EPIS framework. Within each stage, we provide considerations for both SLPs evaluating research partnerships and researchers seeking to collaborate with schools, along with guiding questions for both audiences. An illustrative example from the authors' university-school partnership implementing ultrasound visual biofeedback with school-based SLPs is used throughout to ground recommendations in the specific challenges and decisions partnership work requires.

Closing the research-to-practice gap in school-based speech-language pathology requires not only better interventions but also better partnerships between the researchers who study innovations and the practitioners who deliver them. Codesign and qualitative practices serve as essential mechanisms through which SLP expertise enters and shapes the research process at every stage. This tutorial complements existing implementation science resources for school settings by addressing how to build the partnerships that make implementation possible in the first place.