Purpose: In this article, I question how practitioners can balance the certainty and confidence that they can help their patients with the uncertainty that makes them continually question their beliefs and assumptions. Method: I compare the mechanisms of science and models of clinical practice that may help practitioners achieve the right balance…

Purpose: I provide alternative views to Kamhi's (2011) assertion that clinical practice cannot be scientific. I also discuss how the field of communication sciences and disorders might encourage scientific thinking about clinical practices in researchers and clinicians. Method: Kamhi's three main points for why clinical practice cannot be…

Purpose: I respond to Kamhi's (2011) conclusion in his article "Balancing Certainty and Uncertainty in Clinical Practice" that rational or critical thinking is an essential complement to evidence-based practice (EBP). Method: I expand on Kamhi's conclusion and briefly describe what clinicians might need to know to think critically within an EBP…

Purpose: We reflect on Alan Kamhi's (2011) prologue on balancing certainty and uncertainty as it pertains to school-based practice. Method: In schools, rational thinking depends on effective team processes, much like professional learning communities. We consider the conditions that are required for rational thinking and how rational team dialogue…

Purpose: This article proposes some recommendations to enable clinicians to balance certainty and uncertainty when evaluating the currency and effectiveness of their treatment approaches. Method: I offer the following advice: (a) Question the authority of the information previously learned in one's career; (b) be cognizant of what we do not yet…

Purpose: In this epilogue, I respond to each of the five commentaries, discussing in some depth a central issue raised in each commentary. In the final section, I discuss how my thinking about certainty and uncertainty in clinical practice has evolved since I wrote the initial article. Method: Topics addressed include the similarities/differences…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine if sound-field amplification (SFA) devices affected student performance in 3 different types of classrooms. Method: The classroom performance of 147 children (77 males, 70 females, ages 8;2 [years;months] plus or minus 5 months) was measured at the beginning and end of the second semester of…

Purpose: This project examined receptive vocabulary treatment outcomes in the two languages of a bilingual preschooler with moderate to severe language impairment. Method: A series of single-subject experimental designs was used to compare English-only (EO) and bilingual (BI) approaches to receptive vocabulary treatment. The participant, Nam, was…

Purpose: This study focused on whether developmental communication disorders exist in American Sign Language (ASL) and how they might be characterized. ASL studies is an emerging field; educators and clinicians have minimal access to descriptions of communication disorders of the signed modality. Additionally, there are limited resources for…

Purpose: The main goals of this study were to determine if school-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs) have access to the services of an audiologist and if those SLPs felt they obtained benefit from the audiologist's services. Additional goals included gathering information about SLPs' (a) understanding of basic audiological concepts typical…

Purpose: School-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs) routinely work with team members to make recommendations regarding an intervention program's intensity and method of service delivery for children with speech and language impairments. In this study, student, SLP, and workplace characteristics that may influence SLPs' recommendations were…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess the bilingual writing of adolescent English language learners (ELLs) using quantitative tools. Linguistic measures were applied to the participants' writing at the lexical, syntactic, and discourse levels, with the goal of comparing outcomes at each of these levels across languages (Spanish/English)…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore how adolescent English language learners' (ELLs') language and literacy experiences impacted their identities as bilingual writers. Method: Six students were randomly selected from a group of 20 Spanish-speaking ELLs, ages 11-14, who participated in a larger, mixed-methods study on bilingual…

Purpose: The potential contributions of behavioral and verbal liabilities to social risk were examined by comparing peer victimization levels in children with specific language impairment (SLI) to those in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and typically developing (TD) children. Method: Sixty children (age range: 7-8…

Purpose: The purpose of the current study was to examine the concurrent validity and classification accuracy of 3 parent report measures of language development in Spanish-speaking toddlers. Method: Forty-five Spanish-speaking parents and their 2-year-old children participated. Twenty-three children had expressive language delays (ELDs) as…