Weighing the Evidence

When people have significant communication difficulties that severely restrict their participation in daily life experiences, professionals and families alike sometimes find themselves attracted to the use of unproven methods. Although this usually comes from a good place, (i.e., the fervent desire to help someone), we have to be very careful in facing these decisions. Like you, we’ve heard comments like “Let’s try it. What’s the harm?” and they scare us. The harm can be difficult to quantify but is real nonetheless. Just talk to Gracie, whose mom cancelled therapies one summer and used the monies to take her swim with the dolphins. We’re not dolphin-haters, but there’s not much they can do for apraxia.

We thought it was a good time to revisit this tutorial on differentiating science from pseudoscience. Many thanks to Dr. Caroline Bowen for hosting this article on her terrific website, Speech Language Therapy.com.

Finn, P., Bothe,A., & Bramlett, R.(2005). Science and pseudoscience in communication disorders: Criteria and applications. American Journal of Speech‐Language Pathology, 14, 172‐186.