A Word From NAP Sponsor: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association

“We’ve Come a Long Way, Baby!”

For the past 10 years (2015-2025), the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) committed resources to advance interprofessional education and interprofessional collaborative practice (IPE/IPP) as part of its Strategic Pathway to Excellence.

Advancing IPE/IPP in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology

ASHA collaborated with faculty, clinicians, students, and other health professionals to advance IPE/IPP education, practice, scholarship, and advocacy. This led to the creation of ASHA’s IPE/IPP hub which comprises numerous teaching and learning resources available to advance interprofessional education and practice among current and future cohorts of students and health professionals. These resources provide ready-to-use instructional content, videos, case studies, rubrics, How-To guidance, and current research studies and evidence maps.

This expansive effort has resulted in significant growth in IPE offerings within communication sciences and disorders (CSD). Utilization of IPE/IPP within the academic and/or clinical curricula for audiology and speech-language pathology graduate clinical degree programs increased from 61% (175/288 programs) in 2015 to 95% (359/378 programs) as of 2024 (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Percent of CSD Academic Programs Incorporating IPE Approaches (2015-2024)

Likewise, engagement in interprofessional collaborative practice by ASHA members was measured biannually over the past 10 years using an Interprofessional Practice Survey. As of 2025, 88% of all respondents reported engaging in IPP based on the World Health Organization definition of IPP. Additionally, 79% of respondents report demonstrating optimal IPP behaviors “almost always” or “most of the time.” This represents an 18% increase from a baseline of 61% measured in 2016 (Figure 2).

Figure 2

Percent of ASHA Member Audiologists and Speech-Language Pathologists Engaged in IPP (2016-2025)

Advancing IPE/IPP Across Health Professions

Are you looking for IPE/IPP resources to help advance your efforts? Many of ASHA’s resources developed to advance interprofessional education, practice, and research were created for use across health professions and in collaboration with other health professions. Check out the sampling of resources linked below and then visit ASHA’s IPE/IPP hub to access even more resources.

23 Case Studies: These real-world cases feature audiologists and speech-language pathologists collaborating with many different health professions to provide optimal care.

IPP In Action Videos: These videos showcase health care and K-12 education teams describing optimal team collaboration practices and benefits.

Personal Stories Videos: These first-person stories help students and clinicians learn why interprofessional collaboration matters by featuring patient and family members’ positive and negative team collaboration experiences.

How To Guidance: Check out ASHA’s How To guides to Design IPE Learning Activities, Set Up and Run Your IPP Team, Plan and Fund IPE/IPP Research, Collaborative Goal Writing, and more. These guides frequently include downloadable rubrics and checklists.

By learning together and practicing together, we are collectively advancing and sustaining optimal interprofessional collaboration that benefits those we serve in health care and education settings!