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Abstract
Beginning with a brief description of family communication as an area of the communication discipline, this essay introduces the JACR symposium on applied family communication research, which is a topic of increasing interest among communication scholars in the mid‐1990s. Four papers, competitively selected for this symposium, are summarized and their unique contributions are highlighted. Five criteria are presented as necessary and sufficient conditions for research to be defined as applied family communication research: scope, goals, significance, methodologies, and implications for practice. Finally, contributions of applied family communication to the larger communication discipline are discussed.