'You feel part of something bigger': Stakeholders' experiences of a long-term community-academic participatory research partnership.

The study was conducted at the end of the partnership, relying on retrospective accounts, which may introduce recall bias. No autistic individuals or parents were involved in the design or as participants, limiting the perspective on how these partnership dynamics affected service users. The sample size was small (30 participants) and specific to one long-standing partnership, so findings may not generalise to other contexts or shorter-term collaborations. The analysis was not designed to test specific conceptual models of partnership sustainability, so it may have missed structured factors that would have emerged from a more targeted inquiry.

The research was supported by La Trobe University and an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship. Several authors (C.B., K.H., K.C., S.U.) had prior roles or salary associations with the service provider or the partnership being studied, which could introduce bias in interpreting the partnership's success or failure. E.P. and T.I. declared no conflicts.

Do not interpret the reported positive impacts on children (e.g. 'children are very happy', 'learning generalised') as evidence of the intervention's efficacy. These are stakeholder perceptions reported within a qualitative study of partnership dynamics, not measured clinical outcomes.