Evidence-based practice in communication disorders: progress not perfection.

PURPOSE

This commentary is written in response to a companion paper by Nan Bernstein Ratner (Evidence-Based Practice: An Examination of its Ramifications for the Practice of Speech-Language Pathology).

METHOD

The comments reflect my experience as Vice President for Research and Technology of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). One of the responsibilities of the Vice President is to monitor the work of the Advisory Committee on Evidence-Based Practice.

CONCLUSION

Evidence-based practice (EBP) is a challenging but attainable goal for audiology and speech-language pathology. Our professions have made rapid progress in developing the foundations for EBP. To be sure, a great deal of work remains to be done, but we have learned from the experiences of other professions and have built our own systems to support EBP.