Trends in Clinical Practice Research in ASHA Journals: 2008-2018

Purpose: Despite the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association's (ASHA's) endorsement of evidence-based practice (EBP) and speech-language pathologists' (SLPs') agreement on the importance of EBP, practicing clinicians report barriers to implementing EBP. The purpose of this study was to examine trends in clinical practice research published in ASHA journals over the past 11 years (2008-2018). Method: A total of 2,483 articles from the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology; Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools; and Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research were extracted for coding. Coders were licensed SLPs who were trained to 80% reliability on classifying the type of research in each article. Clinical practice research articles were further classified as studies on assessment, studies on intervention, and studies that explore the implementation of EBP. Results: Clinical practice research comprised the minority of literature published in ASHA journals in the field of speech-language pathology (25%). These articles were composed of assessment (10%), intervention (15%), and implementation (< 1%). These articles were distributed across a variety of primary content areas, with an absence of implementation science for the majority of clinical areas. Conclusions: The lack of clinical practice research readily available to practicing SLPs is a barrier to EBP. The results of this study underscore the need for increased clinical practice research. Future work should investigate EBP in the context of clinician-researcher partnerships and increasing the capacity of clinicians to conduct clinical practice research.