A missing voice in the discourse of evidence-based practice

Document Type

Article

Date of Original Version

1-1-2007

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the discourse of evidence-based practice presented in official written documents of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Documents were analyzed with respect to how language was used to convey a sense of certainty about the profession's official position on evidence-based practice, what should count as evidence, and how the role of the client was constructed. Analysis revealed a missing voice-or verbal/ideological perspective (M. M. Bahktin, trans. 1981)-in the construction of evidence. This voice is characterized by observations from the lives of clients and their expressed experiences with assessment and intervention, a form of evidence whose units of analysis do not readily meet the constraints of objectivity and quantification grounded in an epistemology of traditional experimental research methods. Among other things, it will be argued that the current official version of evidence-based practice needs to be reconstructed to include the voices of clients as a form of evidence. Copyright © 2007 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Publication Title, e.g., Journal

Topics in Language Disorders

Volume

27

Issue

1

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