Scientific Thinking in Speech and Language Therapy

This ground-breaking text represents an attempt to make explicit the meaning of science as a guiding philosophy that provides standards for determining truthful knowledge or evidence. The author’s motivation for this book was to introduce the principles of the scientific method and to provide a course in critical thinking. A further aim was to achieve those goals without diminishing the importance of caring by the use of examples and illustrations that are specific to communications disorders. The text offers an introduction to the history and philosophy of science, scientific methods, and fundamental concepts underlying scientific thinking and reasoning. It provides many illustrative examples from speech and language pathology to help undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as practitioners contextualize these ideas. The text also offers examples of everyday events for the speech-pathology student in first year speech and language pathology courses or health-science courses. Although the text of this book is directed toward the speech therapy/pathology profession, it confronts issues that are critical in any other clinical profession as well.
For that reason, it should find a wider readership than its designated professional group. In addition, the author sets out principles and rules in a most illuminating way that is accessible to any level