Clinical Practice Research in Communication Sciences and Disorders
To address a critical need in the research base, the CREd Library gives special attention to resources that focus on clinical practice research. Accelerating the generation of clinical practice research is essential to addressing the discipline’s critical need for an expanded and strengthened evidence base to inform federal and state regulatory policies and administrative decisions about funding services for those with communication disorders and to advance clinical practice.
What is Clinical Practice Research?
Within the discipline of Communication Sciences and Disorders, clinical practice research encompasses several components of developmental and health research. These components are intended to produce knowledge essential for improving the human condition by preventing, identifying, assessing, and treating disorders of communication, as well as related disorders such as those of deglutition and balance.
Clinical practice research is a subset of the larger domain of clinical research, which investigates methods for preventing disorders, improving the accuracy and precision of diagnostic and screening materials, enhancing the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions, and optimizing the cost–benefit ratio of services provided by audiologists and speech- language pathologists. Clinical practice research, which should be distinguished from studies on the underlying nature of disorders or mechanism of disease, specifically addresses issues directly concerned with methods and approaches used in the delivery of services and their outcomes.
