Question Can speech and language therapy help people with schizophrenia? How? For example, by improving self-verbal monitoring and inner speech (if we assume that these patients exhibit distorted self-verbal monitoring or inner speech). My reply The state of the art…
ABSTRACT Writing a research proposal requires clarity about which methodological, ethical and political questions need to be answered at each stage of research. This article presents a table of relevant questions that will assist in the planning of a robust research strategy. How to write a research proposal…
ABSTRACT Speech therapy, as a social science, uses several research tools that are common to the social sciences in general. It is convenient to identify the main research styles as experiments, surveys and ethnography. This article expands these categories and includes a discussion of standardized tests, observations, and…
ABSTRACT The strengths and weaknesses of the three principle social scientific research methods of experiment, survey and ethnography are highlighted. For each, the relative emphasis placed on the setting, reliability, generalizability, description of explanatory variables and control of extraneous is summarized. The following table summarizes the strengths…
ABSTRACT The cycle of enquiry is a method of moving away from common-sense reactions and towards an examination of appropriate evidence. An evidence-based discipline? What do we mean when we say that Speech-language pathology (speech therapy) is an evidence-based discipline? The basic principle is that…
ABSTRACT Incidence and prevalence are measures used to describe patterns of disease in communities. Data on preschool stuttering is used to demonstrate how to calculate an incidence rate and a prevalence rate. Definition of disease The term disease is used here in its broadest sense to mean…
What is ‘normal’? What do we mean when we say something is ‘normal’? Reflect on what you think is ‘normal’ for each of the following: women’s height eyesight behavior when waiting for a bus consumption of alcohol Each of your answers to the above will likely…
ABSTRACT One way of defining normality and abnormality is to ask whether certain behaviors or styles of functioning cause personal distress. Does it hurt? Another way of defining ‘abnormality’ is to ask whether certain behaviors or styles of functioning cause distress to the individual concerned. Think…
