Asking well-built questions for evidence-based practice in augmentative and alternative communication☆
Section snippets
Sources of clinical or educational questions
According to Law (2002), the most common origin of questions is professional practice itself. For example, a clinician may have a child on her caseload for whom she would like to explore the use of a speech generating device (SGD) on a trial basis. Although the child and his family agree with such a trial period, collectively the clinician and her team might be unsure whether to try a dynamic display, a static display, or a combination thereof. The clinician may also wonder whether only one of
Existing templates for asking well-built questions
The anatomy of the well-built question and any templates for composing well-built questions should be derived, in part, from the definition of EBP itself. Several definitions emphasize that EBP decisions should influence the interventions or assessments provided to individual clients. This then suggests that question formulation for EBP purposes needs to occur in the context of a particular client or group of clients (Scherer & Smith, 2002). More general questions (e.g., “will the use of AAC
Directions for future research
Several directions for future work are suggested. For one, it would be prudent to study whether the proposed PESICO framework aids clinicians and educators in formulating more focused questions which in turn lead to improved retrieval of relevant evidence and greater satisfaction with the EBP process. Another approach might explore how clinicians and educators currently formulate questions. This will not only allow for the identification of pre-service and in-service training needs for asking
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The paper has been presented as a poster at the Annual Convention of the American-Speech-Language and Hearing Association in San Diego, CA, USA. We would like to thank Katie Angermeier for her assistance in the preparation in this manuscript.