Research methods courses are a critical component of teaching the applications of evidence based practice in the health professions. With the shift to online learning during the Covid-19 pandemic, new possibilities for teaching research methods have emerged. This case study compares two 5-week asynchronous online graduate level research methods courses in the field of Communication Sciences and Disorders. One online section of the course used traditional methods (TDL) common in face-to-face courses with recorded slide-based lectures, written discussion forums, and a final presentation. The other online section of the course used project-based learning (PBL), which consisted of weekly projects that forced students to engage with the literature and work both collaboratively and autonomously. We measured students’ research self-efficacy and course satisfaction before and after their courses. Overall, research self-efficacy was higher for the TDL class at both time points. However, the PBL class showed a higher percent increase in research self-efficacy, specifically for more difficult and unfamiliar tasks like statistical analysis. Students in both courses were equally satisfied with their course and instructor; however, students in the PBL class reported a greater workload and level of difficulty. We interpret the results as showing benefits of PBL in facilitating greater engagement with the research literature and course content; while TDL had advantages in students’ confidence with the course, likely due to familiarity with the instructional format.

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Purpose Little is known about how clinicians develop expertise in childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), a rare speech disorder with heterogeneous presentation. The purpose of this survey study was to examine the beliefs and practices of clinicians specializing in CAS. Method Speech-language pathologists who self-identify as having expertise in CAS ( n = 165) completed an online survey regarding influences on clinical practice and beliefs about CAS. Practice patterns and perspectives regarding CAS were analyzed for respondents who self-identify as having expertise in CAS, across 4 experience bands (1–5, 6–10, 11–15, and 15+ years). Results A majority of the respondents to this survey provide treatment to preschool-age children with CAS. Respondents report features used in differential diagnosis aligned with the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association's (2007 ) technical report, with inconsistency as a key feature. Results suggest that continuing education courses are highly influential in the perceived development of expertise and perspectives regarding CAS. Respondents expressed uncertainty about comorbidity of CAS with other communication disorders. Overall, beliefs and practices are relatively uniform across levels of clinical experience. Conclusions Practices and perspectives of clinicians who self-identify as having expertise with CAS are influenced by factors noted in previous literature. Results of this survey highlight the need for research on the development of expertise in the clinical management of CAS, updated consensus statements that reflect advances in current research, clarification regarding comorbidity of CAS with other communication disorders, and evaluation of continuing education opportunities. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.9755459

This chapter reviews the limitations of the evidence-based practice (EBP) framework adopted by American Speech Language Hearing Association for the field of speech, language, and hearing sciences (SLHS) in addressing systemic racism. The authors argue that a shift from a medically-based EBP model to a pluralistic EBP model would better serve the needs of black, indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) with communication impairments in the current sociopolitical landscape. The authors examine the three pillars of EBP through the lens of social justice work. They describe how the current EBP model limits the development of social justice work in SLHS. They describe the need to refine the EBP model by validating the contribution of qualitative research as scientific evidence, reevaluating the basis of clinical expertise in client-clinician cultural mismatch, and address the importance of integrating policy and culture in consideration of client and family preferences. These transformations are critical in light of the under-representation of BIPOC clinicians in the field of SLHS profession.

Phonological awareness skills in children with reading difficulty (RD) may reflect impaired automatic integration of orthographic and phonological representations. However, little is known about the underlying neural mechanisms involved in phonological awareness for children with RD. Eighteen children with RD, ages 9–13, participated in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study designed to assess the relationship of two constructs of phonological awareness, phoneme synthesis, and phoneme analysis, with crossmodal rhyme judgment. Participants completed a rhyme judgment task presented in two modality conditions; unimodal auditory only and crossmodal audiovisual. Measures of phonological awareness were correlated with unimodal, but not crossmodal, lexical processing. Moreover, these relationships were found only in unisensory brain regions, and not in multisensory brain areas. The results of this study suggest that children with RD rely on unimodal representations and unisensory brain areas, and provide insight into the role of phonemic awareness in mapping between auditory and visual modalities during literacy acquisition.