​
​What’s the difference between respect and love?
 
Wait—back up. ​Before you go on a tangent of considering every relationship you have, and how they all differ in terms of respect and love, let’s look at just one relationship: your relationship with our field’s science. Our evidence. Do you respect it, or do you love it?
 
I think, for most people, the answer is actually “respect”, not “love”. And I see this as a problem. Here’s why:
 
Respecting our science, to me, means putting it on a pedestal. Knowing it’s highly valuable. Important. Something to be revered. Something to be referenced, whenever possible (Smith, 2017, #pretendcitation).
When a graduate student leaves his or her master’s program with a respect for our field’s science, that’s good. A good thing! But it’s also wholly inadequate. Because it can mean that they leave that science, sitting there on it’s pedestal, and wave a respectful little ‘goodbye,’ before proceeding on with clinical work. (Want a real citation for this blog post? Try this article on how quickly students lose touch with the evidence after grad school.)
So, to me, respect doesn’t cut it, because you can respect something but be completely uninvolved with it. Here's an example: I respect cardiovascular exercise. I am 100% confident it’s good for you, and smart people do it. But me? I don’t do it. I hate that crap, and have zero love for cardiovascular exercise. Cardiovascular exercise and I are entirely uninvolved with one another, but #respect.
 
So then, love. What does loving our science look like? Loving something means taking it down off the pedestal. Loving something means holding it, carrying it, using it, valuing it, turning it over, critiquing it, talking about it. Loving something means knowing the good and bad parts of it, but ultimately caring deeply about it nonetheless. When you love something, you think about it in your free time. When you love something, it’s part of you.
A graduate student who loves our science isn’t one who leaves school with the evidence sitting there on its pedestal. A student who loves our science packs it up with them, puts it in their messenger bag (except backpacks seem to be way more popular these days, so fine—backpack; or maybe fanny pack if they can fold it up small enough and pull off that hipster vibe). But, the point is: when you love something, you take it with you! You use it.
 
Respecting our science isn’t enough. We have to love it and carry it with us.
 
So how to we problem-solve this? Well, I think a hefty part of our clinicians’ relationship with science begins in grad school, and is supported (or not) by what happens in the first several years post-grad. So for those of us who interact with our field’s newest colleagues, we need to take a serious look at the role we play—are we doing this? Are we teaching our grad students, CFs, and first-five-years SLPs how to love our science? Or are we torturing them with it? (!) Are we making it harder and scarier than it needs to be, and perhaps forgetting that the relationship they have with our science may end up mattering far more than anything else? After all, that's what influences whether or not they even end up using it at all.
 
So what do you all think? How do we make sure our students leave grad school knowing and loving our science, making room for it in their little knapsacks? (Along with the 20,000 pens and highlighters every SLP seems to deem necessary... ;) 

People reading this post likely fall into one of two categories: 1) You know exactly why I’m writing this, and you already have your “preach hands” up, or 2) You have no idea what I’m talking about, or why I would even open this discussion. If you fit in the latter category, I hope I can coherently explain the issue. I’ll give it a whirl...
 
Let’s start with the backstory:
​
Once upon a time, the field of speech–language pathology realized that in order to act in our clients’ best interests, we need to be using evidence-based practice (of course this has been an interdisciplinary, international thing, but for now we’ll discuss it only as it applies within our field). Traditionally, SLPs have done well with the clinical expertise and clients’ needs portions of this. They’ve done less well with taking research evidence into consideration. Why would that be? Perhaps because the research is so far away from us. It’s hard to get, it’s hard to wade through, and it’s time-consuming to interpret. Simply put, there are high (and numerous) barriers between clinicians and the evidence, with two of the big ones being access and utility. And to-date, we haven’t been all that honest with each other about those barriers. Ultimately, this lack of communication, lack of frankness, and abysmal acknowledgment of clinical reality has impeded our ability to make the “research” corner of EBP realistic and achievable.

​Most folks say “time”. Here and here they cite time as the biggest (or primary) barrier. Any time I go to a conference and participate in an EBP talk and somebody asks the audience this question, they always say time. Any time I go to a conference and nobody takes the question beyond time, I start to get a little cranky. Here’s why:
 
Time barriers are real, for sure. But “time” is a surface issue that hides what’s really going on.
 
And we need to start talking about the real problems.
 
What are the real problems? Clinicians, do an exercise with me, and you’ll see what I mean:

1. Imagine someone were to magically gift you time! (Happy dance!!!!) Imagine they gave you two hours per week. Forget EBP and research for a moment. What would do you do with that time? Most clinicians say: Catch up on paperwork, plan for therapy…
2. Now imagine someone gifted you four hours per week. What would do you do with that time? Most clinicians still say: Catch up on paperwork, plan for therapy… then they start adding in other things like collaborating with teachers for better carryover or push-in therapy. Or they start organizing their speech room. Or playing around on the internet and social media… (!) No judgment, I hear you—that’s what I’d do with free time too!
3. Now here comes the *get real* question: Why would you prioritize all those other things over reading research? Answer to yourself, honestly. Nobody’s listening, and nobody is here to judge your rationale. Well, I’m listening—I’ve conducted this exact “experiment” a million (ok fine, around 30) times with individual and small groups of SLPs, and I get a laundry list of responses. Some of the responses stem from misunderstandings of what our research has to offer clinicians. But most (all?) of them also carry at least some thread of truth. Truths that, quite frankly, not nearly enough of us have been talking about. Openly. So, today, I’m going to address one of the biggies. Just one for now, because you don’t want me writing a novel here! :)

 
***NOTE that the time I just gifted you, above, barely scratches the surface. Brackenberry et al., 2008 suggest it takes 3–7 hours to pose a question, research it, read the evidence, and pose a solution.
 
OK, so what’s this BIG, under-acknowledged barrier?

Answer each question, one at a time. After some of these steps, you may feel like, "I don't have time for that!?" Yeah, well, that's what clinicians say when they're told they need to know the research! (doh) Implementation requires all of our thoughtful efforts and service to the field! Let's get started. 
 
Was the intervention designed with clients’ and SLPs’ needs in mind?
If Yes: next step
If No: This blog post isn’t for you. No worries! If you’re still wanting to share your research, you likely need an alternative public engagement strategy, and your audience may not even be SLPs at all. We’ll chat about that another day… See you next time!

Could an SLP take your research, and immediately apply it to practice? Do your findings have the potential to change clinical practice? Currently?
If Yes: next step
If No: That's ok! It’s probably just not the purpose of your research. At The Informed SLP, we’re finding that about 90% of articles published each month in our field are not clinically applicable. For all sorts of reasons. And when they're not, your audience isn't SLPs. But, thank you for your scholarship, and come back when you have an article that is a "yes" to this question!
 
During the publication process, did you take steps to ensure that SLPs reading your article could understand it?
If Yes: next step
If No: OK, check it out: If you ascribe to the notion that SLPs must read research in order to engage in evidence-based practice, then the articles need to be written in language that is relevant to both scientists and SLPs. Next time, have an SLP read your article and ​give you feedback before you go through the entire publication process, yeah? Offer lunch; everybody likes lunch! This is a really easy step, but a step that not enough people do.