The Clinical Research Education Library connects emerging and established scientists with resources on topics critical to the conduct and advancement of clinical research in communication and related disorders.
Start exploring:
» Browse by category
» Share your knowledge
Advancing Knowledge and Accelerating Research
Within the communication sciences and disorders (CSD) discipline, the goal of clinical research is to produce knowledge essential to preventing, identifying, assessing, and treating disorders of speech, voice, language, hearing, swallowing, and balance.
In recent years, the need for such research has grown exponentially, concomitant with
- a growing demand for studies that support evidence-based approaches to practice,
- a growing scope of practice in the discipline,
- the broadening of traditional research areas to include such domains as implementation science and participation (i.e., involvement in life roles and situations).
The CREd Library was conceived as a response—and solution—to the challenges of the current clinical research environment. Its goals are to
- advance knowledge of clinical research methods and practices,
- accelerate the generation of high-quality applied research in CSD,
- facilitate an exchange of knowledge through the ongoing curation of articles, tools, presentations, and multimedia content.
Focus on Clinical Practice Research
To address a critical need in the research base, the CREd Library gives special attention to resources that focus on clinical practice research, a subset of the larger domain of clinical research.
Unlike studies on the underlying nature of disorders or mechanisms of disease, clinical practice research focuses more directly on service delivery and treatment outcomes, investigating methods and approaches for
- preventing disorders,
- improving the accuracy and precision of diagnosis and screening,
- enhancing the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions,
- optimizing the value (e.g., cost–benefit ratio) of services provided by audiologists and speech-language pathologists.
Key Issues and Expert Perspectives
The CREd Library collection will cover topics essential to the design, implementation, and management of high-quality clinical practice research, including group and single-subject study designs, bias and validity, analysis and interpretation, ethical considerations, collaboration, publishing, grantsmanship, and much more.
In addition to a wealth of instructional articles and presentations, the collection will include tools, practical examples, and interviews that reflect expert perspectives and capture challenges, solutions, and lessons learned.
Ongoing Development
Development of the CREd Library is supported in part through a grant awarded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) to the American Speech-Language Hearing Association (DC012078).
The CREd Library launched in December 2014, and development of the collections is ongoing.
