An ASHA First

The lead article in this issue of AJSLP represents a first for an American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) journal. The article titled Rehabilitation Medicine Summit: Building Research Capacity (Executive Summary) by Walter R. Frontera and his colleagues is being published in 16 high-quality journals nearly simultaneously sometime between late 2005 and early 2006. We are honored that AJSLP was selected as one of the journals in which this article will appear. This Executive Summary is an outgrowth of a meeting that took place last spring in Washington, DC, at which many of the top experts in medical rehabilitation convened to develop an action plan for enhancing research capacity in rehabilitation medicine. The participants represented a broad range of disciplines, including speech-language pathology.

Simultaneous publication is a rare event and requires special policies and procedures. For this purpose, ASHA's Publications Board has put in place the following policies and procedures: "ASHA journals may publish manuscripts on cross-disciplinary issues that have been previously published or that are being simultaneously published in two or more journals. Acceptance is contingent on approval of the manuscript by an Editor in consultation with at least one Associate Editor and the Chair...