Chair’s introduction to the workshop on basic science at the intersection of speech science and communication disorders

Abstract

In the study of speech perception and production, there is a history of developing, evaluating, and revising models and theories based on data collected exclusively from talkers and listeners judged to be free of communication disorders. Basic research with clinically relevant disorders is sometimes confused with, and dismissed as, clinical/applied research. In other branches of science, including, for example, psycholinguistics and biology, study of clinical disorders is regularly employed as one of the avenues for building and testing more comprehensive theories and/or models, and is viewed as a major source of knowledge concerning the physiological structures responsible for normal processes. The intent of the workshop format is to provide a forum for discussion of the significance of clinical disorders for the scientific areas of speech perception and production. A group of distinguished scientists has been invited: (1) to describe their own work involving disorders in speech production and/or perception; and (2) to comment on scientific, data analytic, philosophical, and pragmatic issues that are specific to the enterprise of incorporating data from clinical disorders into their work and their fields. The organizers encourage the attendance of scientists with and without research involving clinical disorders, as well as students.