External Evidence

New and exciting studies are constantly being published, and the ISHA Evidence-Based Practice Committee would like to make sure you know about them!  When a new issue of an ASHA Journal is published, the EBP committee will highlight some interesting studies for you and provide the link to access the article through the ASHA website.

Byiers, B.J., Reichle, J. & Symons, F.J. (2016).Single-subject experimental design for evidence-based practice. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 21, 397-414. This article provides guidance on how to interpret the strength of evidence provided by single-subject experimental designs and design such studies. Many areas of clinical practice rely on single-subject designs as a critical component of empirical support for interventions.

Turkstea, L., Norman, R., Whyte, J., Diijkers, M., & Hart, T. (2016). Knowing what we’re doing: Why specification of treatment methods is critical for evidence-based practice in speech-language pathology. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 25, 164-171. This article outlines the importance of documenting specific treatment methodology within the RTT framework, and how using such a framework may augment more reliable and consistent clinical practices.

Theodoros, D.G., Hill, A.J., & Russell, T.G. (2016). Clinical and quality of life outcomes of speech treatment for Parkinson’s Disease delivered to the home via telerehabilitation: A noninferiority randomized controlled trial. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 25, 214-232.

Kent, R. D. (2015). Nonspeech oral movements and oral motor disorders: A narrative review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 24(4), 763-789. This narrative review presented the current research on nonspeech oral movements and their controversial application in assessment and treatment of a variety of clinical conditions, such as assessment and treatment of speech disorders and feeding difficulties.

Rezzonico, S., Hipfner-Boucher, K., Milburn, T., Weitzman, E., Greenberg, J., Pelletier, J., & Girolametto, L. (2015). Involving preschool educators’ interactive shared book reading: Effects of coaching in professional development. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 24(4), 717-732. This research study showed that coaching educators on interactive shared book reading had a direct impact on the quality and complexity of the children’s language.

Brady, N.C., Storkel, H.L., Bushness, P., Barker, M., Saunders, D.D., & Fleming, K. (2015). Investigating a multimodal intervention for children with limited expressive vocabularies associated with autism. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 24, 438-459. This new treatment study showed how combining AAC and speech sound practice resulted in gains in children with autism. This intervention package may be a nice option for children with autism who have limited expressive vocabularies.

Hall-Mills, S., & Apel, K. (2015). Linguistic feature development across grades and genre in elementary writing. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 46, 242-255.  This article provides a great review into written language in school-age children and documents the progression of various elements of writing across grades 2-4. Data from this article can help support clinical decisions regarding written language, specifically within the context of the Common Core State Standards.