Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, Volume 52, 306-312, November 1987

T H E L I M I T S OF S C I E N C E IN C O M M U N I C A T I O N DISORDERS

GERALD M. SIEGEL
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis

Science is a powerful tool when it addresses the kinds of questions it wag designed to answer, but there are also important
questions in communication disorders that fall outside the limits of science. Three such areas are discussed: Questions concerning
social and personal values, questions that call for logical rather than scientific endeavors, and questions that should not be posed
because we already know the answers and would not be influenced by contrary findings.
I I I

The ASHA conference on education in communication
disorders (Bees & Snope, 1983) made it evident that science
is considered by members of this profession to be an
extremely important component of clinical practice and
preparation. At that conference numerous speakers extolled
the values of science for the edification of students and as a
model for therapy. Flower (1983) and Kent (1983) went
further and suggested that our status as an autonomous
profession in control of its own destiny is contingent on our
ability to create our own research base and to generate our
own scientific and technological advances. This testimony
to the importance of science in our profession in the 1980s
is no more than a reaffirmation of themes that motivated its
earliest leaders (Paden, 1970). And yet, while we may be
justifiably proud of the commitinent to science in our
educational and professional programs, we should also be
mindful that there are limits to the reach of science, that not
all problems are susceptible of scientific solutions.
I have taken the title of this paper from a book by P. B.
Medawar (1984), one of the most astute commentators on
contemporary science. Medawar notes that science is most
successful when it answers the kinds of questions it was
designed to answer, but that there are important questions
that fall outside of science--questions of public policy, of
social and personal values, of faith and belief--that are no
less important because they are not susceptible to scientific
study. In the current paper I suggest that there are also
problems in communication disorders that are best ad-
dressed outside the orbit of science. After a discussion of the
nature of science, I will develop these limitations in three
areas: (a) Questions of values, (b) questions that require a
logical rather than a scientific understanding, and (c) ques-
tions that should not be posed because we already know the
answers and would not be influenced by contrary findings.
The Nature of Science
The literature abounds with definitions of science, both
technical and popular, methodological and philosophical.
As pervasive and important as science is to the fabric of
modern life, the definitions are often at variance with
each other. According to Popper (1968):
Science is not a system of certain, or well-established,
statements; nor is it a system which steadily advances
towards a state of finality. Our science is not knowledge; it
can never claim to have attained truth, or even a substitute
for it, such as probability. (p. 276)
Medawar (1984) rejects the notion that there could be
any single approach that qualifies as science or the
scientific method:
I go along with the opinion of William Whewell, Bertrand
Russell and Karl Popper that scientists do not make their
discoveries by induction or by the practice of any other
one method. The "scientific method" is therefore illusory.
... A scientist commands a dozen different strategies of
inquiry in his approximation to the truth. (pp. 16--17)
However, in an earlier book, Medwar (1979) was will-
ing to characterize the ordinary functions of science:
"Most of the everyday business of the empirical sciences
consists in testing experimentally the logical implications
of hyp0theses--that is, the consequences of assuming for
the time being that they are true." (p. 85).
Johnston and Pennypacker (1980) define science from a
behaviorist's perspective that emphasizes the necessity
for prediction and control in scientific explanation. For
them, science describes a set of behaviors that culminate
in certain kinds of verbal statements: "We define science
as the collection of human activities for which the conse-
quences are statements of contingencies that allow pre-
diction and control . . . . It is erroneous to refer to science
as knowledge because knowledge is only the byproduct
of science" (pp. 412-413).
For Marx (1951), empirical measurement is at the heart
of science, but there is more to science than collecting
data. "Theory or general explanation is the ultimate
objective of science" (p. 5).
Even Mark Twain has a view of science, expressed in a
lovely work of fiction, Eve's Diary. Twain, it appears, had a
view of knowledge that follows closely the procedures of an
empirical scientist. The following insight was purportedly
noted by Eve shortly after she was created and was busy
exploring the natural phenomena she encountered in Eden:
It is best to prove things by actual experiment; then you
know; whereas if you depend on guessing and supposing
and conjecturing, you will never get educated. Some
things you can't find out; but you will never know you
can't by guessing and supposing; no, you have to be
patient and go on experimenting until you find out that

© 1987, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association 306 0022-4677/87/5204-0306501.00


you can't find out. And it is delightful to have it that way,
it makes the world so interesting. If there wasn't anything
to find out, it would be dull. Even trying to find out and
not finding out is just as interesting as trying to find out
and finding out, and I don't know but more so.
Like so many of the important concepts we appeal to
repeatedly, there is no single, unified definition of sci-
ence or of the practice of scientists. Kuhn (1986) recently
summarized the current confusions concerning the status
of science, as understood by philosophers and historians
of science: "We simply no longer have any useful notions
of how science works or of what scientific progress is" (p.
33). Nevertheless, scientists continue to work, laborato-
ries continue to pour out new discoveries, and books and
journal articles continue to proliferate, often to the con-
sternation of those of us who are more committed to keep
up, than wise enough to come in out of the deluge.
My own orientation, at least to behavioral science, is close
to Eve's diary entry or to Johnston and Pennypacker (1980).
I view speech and hearing science as an activity that
aggressively explores relationships between environmental
events and the persons who are influenced and who, in
turn, influence the environment. Like Marx (1951) and
others, I believe that the object of behavioral science is to
explain behavior, but, in the tradition of behaviorism, I
regard the most satisfying explanation as one that is ob-
tained through prediction and control. Zuriff (1985) cap-
tures the essence of this approach in an excellent analysis of
behaviorism. For behaviorists, he says,
Prediction and control are proposed as the defining char-
acteristics of their science, and even of science in getaeral.
That is, an activity is judged as "scientific" to the extent
that it contributes to the prediction and control of phenom-
ena. (p. 9)
Clearly, this definition of science is one not embraced by
all scientists and certainly not by all who delve into com-
munication behaviors. I don't intend to argue the merits of
this definition in the current paper. I frankly don't think it is
critical for the thesis that science, however defined, is
bounded and does not have an infinite reach. I mean to
suggest that there are issues and misunderstandings that are
not clarified by the application of scientific methods, at least
so far as they involve experimental applications or the
conduct of research. I will argue, for example, that a logical
analysis will sometimes convince a scientist that experi-
mentation is unnecessary in resolving a problem. In certain
instances, rather than embark on a program of research, the
scientist might do better to take stock of the constructs he or
she is working with, to look carefully at the definitions
being used, or to analyze the logic of the premises. Such
activities are not unscientific. Nor are they, in my opinion,
intrinsically scientific. They do not require the special skills
of scientific training and rely, to a much greater extent, on
logical analysis. I will not quarrel with someone who insists
that logical analysis is, after all, an intrinsic part of scientific
method. It is possible to disagree on the scope of a defini-
tion of science and on the validity of a behavioral approach
to communication and its disorders and still consider the
SIEGEL: Limits of Science 307
significance of values, logical analysis, and wasteful uses of
science; and that, I believe, is what is important.
Values
There exist perplexing issues concerning clinical man-
agement of communication disorders that require public
debate and clear thinking, though they are not the kinds of
questions science is designed to answer. Perhaps most
pressing in this arena is the basic question of whom it is we
should serve. Basic values change. In the 1950s, very few
speech-language pathologists worked with the mentally
retarded. At a time when caseloads in the public schools
were often well over 100, it was questioned whether it was
a justifiable use of the speech-language pathologist's time
and skill to offer service to retarded children. For example,
Brown (1956) wrote the following in the widely used
textbook, Speech Handicapped School Children:
Professional personnel in speech, education, medicine,
and other fields dealing with retarded children should not
fall prey to wishful thinking. Of course, it is possible to
improve the speech of a feeble-minded child by intensive
training, and it is also possible to improve his intelligence
test scores somewhat. Only infrequently, however, are
these changes indicative of real improvement in the
child's ability to make his own way. (p. 307)
Implicit in Brown's comments is the view that the
justification for dispensing service is that such service
makes it possible for the client "to make his own way."
That view embraces a set of values with far-reaching
consequences. For example, one implication is that if the
clinician's efforts are unlikely to lead to an independent,
contributing member of society, it may be unethical to
persevere in those efforts.
Robert West was even more explicit and the following
quote was reprinted in editions of his textbook up into the
1960s:
The mongol is particularly unresponsive to speech reha-
bilitation, and it is practically useless to attempt such
training. Rehabilitation of speech of the mongol, there-
fore, should be undertaken only with the clear under-
standing of everyone concerned that the therapy is exper-
imental, and any possible results will be meager and in
proportion to the patient's level of intelligence. (West &
Ansberry, 1968, p. 66)
Over the years, values concerning who should or
should not be given special educational services have
changed radically. 1 The justification for therapy is no
lit should be noted for the record that as early as i939 Charles
Van Riper was expressing a rather different attitude about the
obligation of our profession to retarded children:
Nevertheless, children of low intelligence are generally
retarded in speech and must be taught patiently and
carefully by means of the special techniques known to the
teacher of subnormal children. These children need
speech training even more, perhaps, than the usual course
of study given them would seem to indicate. Training in
the manual and domestic arts should be supplemented by
much speech training. (Van Riper, 1939, p. 184)
308 Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders
longer that it must hold the promise of preparing the
client for independent and productive work. It is now
assumed that education is justified if it benefits the
individual, whether or not there is an accompanying
return to society. Public Law 142 has enshrined the value
that all children have the right to an education, in the
least restrictive environment, that will bring them to the
fullest possible realization of their abilities, regardless of
whether they ultimately end up on the tax rolls.
Ironically, this more altruistic social stance has created its
own conflicts of values. The pendulum has swung so far as
to make the boundaries of our professional competency
unclear. In recent years it has been argued that the province
of speech-language pathologists and audiologists should
include reading problems, tongue thrust, swallowing, feed-
ing abnormalities, and clients so severely handicapped that
"communication" is equated with simple sensory stimula-
tion. From a period when the profession was narrowly
exclusive, we have become almost recklessly inclusive in
the willingness to work in so many areas.
Similar questions arise with respect to the elderly and the
chronically ill. It is a question of values whether we should
work with individuals who are in all likelihood close to the
end of their lives and who, though they may previously
have been contributing members of society, are very un-
likely to make further contributions. For them, the justifica-
tion for service cannot be what they will return. Nor is
prognosis for improvement a clear guideline. For some
clients the best that therapy may do is to maintain the status
quo, or to slow progressive degeneration of performance,
and yet we feel an obligation to provide what help we can,
to ease their lives as much as possible.
Value questions meet us at every turn. Concerns about
which clients we should serve, what the criteria should
be for accountability, how to measure the cost of services
against the quality of life of clients--these and the score
of others that fall in the domain of values are of central
importance for our field. They need to be aired, debated,
brought to the attention of students, discussed at national
and local meetings. Empirical evidence is important in
bolstering arguments and as a basis for making decisions,
but in matters of values, the evidence can be marshaled to
support conflicting policies and the decisions must be
made outside the realm of science.
Logical Analysis
Medawar (1984) has noted that science has several
meanings, including the name for a set of procedures and
for the body of organized knowledge derived from those
procedures. However, when Kent (1983) and Flower
(1983) and others urge that the clinical practice of com-
munication disorders is, or ought to be, scientific, I
believe that they are asking that the methods of science
serve as a guide for clinical procedures. Though there is
no single approach that qualifies as science, Medawar
(1979) isolated at least one attribute that he considered to
be universal: "Criticism is the most powerful weapon in
52 306-312 November 1987
any methodology of science; it is the scientist's only
assurance that he need not persist in error. All experimen-
tation is criticism" (p. 94).
Not all criticism need be experimentation, however. In
our veneration for science, and particularly for the seien-
title method, we have taught generations of students to
conclude their theses or dissertations with an appeal for
further research. Sometimes, however, knowledge would
be better served by criticism rather than research. For
example, Siegel, Katsuki, and Potechin (1985) argued that
questions concerning the relationship of cognition to
language are not susceptible of empirical resolution be-
cause the definitions in the literature of "language" and
"cognition" are too fluid and imprecise. We suggested
that one cannot resolve whether language causes cogni-
tion or cognition causes language during development
unless there is agreement about what the terms language
and cognition refer to, unless they encompass indepen-
dent domains, and unless the terms are defined in ways
that remain qualitatively constant over the developmen-
tal period in question.
If the definitions of the basic terms freely vary, the
answer about causal relationships will depend on what is
taken to be language and what cognition, rather than on a
natural phenomenon. If by cognition one author means
performance on the Uzigiris Hunt, and another on the
Stanford Binet, then the outcome of research may very
well depend on which test is used. I f language is some-
times used to refer to syntactic structures and sometimes
to preverbal gestures the child makes to recruit the
listener's attention, it is hard to imagine how a stable
answer to the relationship of cognition and language
could be offered. I f the very same behaviors are some-
times taken as indices of language and at others as indices
of cognition, then any attempt to pursue the question of
the relationship between the two domains is further
thwarted, and no amount of empirical investigation is
likeIy to resolve the confusion.
Another example of a fundamental issue that is better
resolved by a logical than an empirical program is to be
found in recent disputes concerning the nature of stutter-
ing. In a number of places, Perkins (1983, 1984, 1986a,
1986b) has offered a new definition of stuttering that
includes the provision that stuttering invariably involves
the loss of volitional control. According to Perkins:
An indisputable reality for people who consider them-
selves to be stutterers is that they feel as if they lose
control of their speeeh when they stutter . . . . If involun-
tary disruption of the flow of speech is the essence of the
experience of stuttering, then it must form the core of the
definition. But only the person who has that experience is
privy to it. No one else can verify it . . . . The implication of
the foregoing analysis is that a valid definition of stuttering
precludes its being reliable. (Perkins, 1983, p. 247)
Perkins sees a paradox in that the essence of stuttering
involves an unobservable, private event which, in the
interests of reliability of observation, has systematically
been excluded from definitions of stuttering, resulting in
a definition that at best is reliable but cannot be valid.

And, of course, reliability is a hollow attribute when there
is no validity. Perkins's ideas about the essential nature of
stuttering have b e e n criticized by Wingate (1984) and in
an especially thoughtful response by Martin and
Haroldson (1986):
To the degree that Perkins's definition rests rigidly on the
assertion that stuttering really is the involuntary loss of
speech control, then the definition probably will not prove
to be too useful. To assert that the only valid definition of
stuttering invovles behaviors that by their very nature
cannot be observed reliably simply precludes meaningful
scientific inquiry. (p. 189)
I would argue further that Perkins's definition of stutter-
ing fails the test of usefulness because it is, in reality, a
theory posing as a definition. The assertion that stutterers
experience a temporary loss of control during speech is a
point of view, a hypothesis that deserves serious debate, but
it is not an "indisputable reality." The evidence we have
concerning stutterers' inner feelings are verbal statements.
Statements about inner feelings are by no means equivalent
to the feelings themselves, and we cannot be sure that
stutterers are any more reliable about reporting their feel-
ings than are external observers. Furthermore, through the
spontaneous interactions that occur in therapy, clinicians
may inadvertently teach stutterers what the clinician be-
lieves the stutterer should be experiencing. Stutterers' ex-
periences and their reports concerning those experiences
axe not immune to distortion, social influence, and other
sources of inaccuracy and unreliability that affect the judg-
ments of external observers.
The claim that stuttering is essentially the experience of
loss of control will be difficult to evaluate in any event
because it invokes unobservables and precludes public
verification. I agree with Martin and Haroldson (1986) that
this aspect of Perkins's theory reduces its usefulness
(though not necessarily its correctness). One might argue, as
a pragmatist, that a theory is of little practical use, even if it
is true, if it cannot be evaluated. The theory may or may not
prove satisfactory for this and other reasons. I do not wish to
argue here with the theory Perkins has presented. It seems
clear, however, that regardless of the merits of the theory, it
ought not to masquerade as a definition. It is no more
defensible to define stuttering as an involuntary loss of
control than it is to define it as a genetic disorder, or as a
spasmophemia, or as a learned behavior. Rather than pred-
icated as definitions, these views should be retained as
theories about the nature of stuttering. Theories are suscep-
tible of experimental test and disconfirmation. Definitions
are not.
In summary, there are times when logical analysis of the
form and terms of a question is a more useful way of dealing
with it than to launch a program of research and experimen-
tation. A careful evaluation of the question being asked may
indicate that rather than research or experimentation, what
is needed is a rethinking of the terms of the question and
the definitions that are being used.
SIEGEL: Limits of Science 309
Wasteful Uses of Science
Finally, there are instances when the limits to science
ought to be voluntarily imposed because to do otherwise
is wasteful of scientific resources. There are at least two
kinds of questions that, in my opinion, do not warrant
scientific efforts.
The first are questions not worth answering because
they emanate from too flimsy a foundation. The helping
professions are very vulnerable to fads, unsubstantiated
claims, poorly thought out therapy regimes, and prepos-
terous proposals for therapy. I f the scientific community
must explore every crackpot therapy proposal, it will
never get on to the business of building a fundamental
knowledge base. There must be some way of screening
the questions to be explored. Not every candidate therapy
that is offered is worthy of scientific test.
In contrast to opinions voiced by Perkins (1986a,
1986b), the most important question to ask of a therapy is
not whether it works, but rather whether it makes sense.
If the premises underlying a proposed therapy approach
are obviously incorrect, or if they cannot be reconciled
with current therapy and research, the therapy is a very
poor candidate and unlikely to make any lasting contri-
bution to the welfare of clients. Furthermore, it is not a
useful expenditure of scientific effort and resources to test
such therapy regimes. Unfortunately, there will be des-
perate clients who will clamor for any therapy if it is
sufficiently promoted, and clinicians who will also suc-
cumb.
To protect clients and the profession, we must scrupu-
lously avoid extending the "bottom line" philosophy to
communication disorders--that what matters is only
whether or not a proposed therapy method works. No
therapy method is likely to be appropriate in a given form
for all clients. Clinicians will always have the task of
tailoring general methods to specific clients based on
fundamental understandings of the behavioral processes
involved. If the therapy makes no conceptual sense, the
clinician is hopelessly handicapped. It may work for a
particular client, but the clinician has no way of predict-
ing the other clients for whom the therapy approach will
be appropriate, or how to repair it when it does not work.
Almost any therapy method will work for some client on
some occasion. Research designed to demonstrate that
there is no difference between taking sugar pills versus
daily exercises in crawling or speaking while ascending
in elevators will not be convincing to clients who are
desperate and may have heard of a case in which the
methods did work. What is needed are research and
theories that add to knowledge and therapies that can be
related to the available knowledge base.
The second class of questions that I do not believe
ought to be the subject of scientific inquiry are those
whose answers will in no way affect our understandings
or our behavior. It is true, as Kuhn (1970) has pointed out,
that a significant component of normal science involves
posing question whose answers are already strongly an-
ticipated by the prevailing theory or paradigm. But con-
trary results can occur. Anomalies do accumulate, ulti-
310 Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders
mately leading to scientific revolutions. It is a misuse of
research to pose a question when the answer is not only
anticipated, but no other answer will be allowed. This
can occur, however, when questions are posed for polit-
ical or social rather than scientific reasons.
One such question is "Does therapy work?" I do not
believe that is a proper question for research, at least
partly because most of us would not accept the results of
any study that demonstrated otherwise. The reason for
putting that question to test is not to learn about therapy,
but rather to satisfy the skeptics who look at communica-
tion therapy with a jaundiced eye and a shrinking purse.
Aphasia therapy is a fine example of how the account-
ability monster can induce us to maladroit efforts. Darley
(1972) posed several question that he felt aphasia thera-
pists must address because physicians and politicians
were posing them. The first question is the familiar
"Does therapy work?" It was expressed by Darley as:
Does language rehabilitation accomplish measurable
gains in language function beyond what can be expected
to occur as a result of spontaneous recovery? Or, stated
differently, does therapy have a decisive influence on the
course of recovery and the ultimate outcome? (Darley,
1979., p. 4)
More than a decade later, Wertz (1988) raised the same
question with respect to aphasia therapy and concluded
somewhat equivocally that evidence mounts for an affir-
mative answer to Darley's question, though the definitive
treatment study has not been done. I believe that the
definitive treatment experiment cannot be done; outcome
research is simply confounded by too many uncontrolla-
ble variables relating to the client, the therapist, the
setting, the method of therapy, the measures taken, and so
on.
Furthermore, such a study is superfluous because we
do not need science to establish that therapy works. It
seems incontrovertible that all human behavior is poten-
tially malleable, and that none of us, client or therapist, is
working to the absolute limits of his or her ability.
Regardless of one's theoretical approach, therapy ulti-
mately consists in creating conditions in which behavior
will change, and, given its malleability, behavior can
always be modified at least to some extent. The issue,
therefore, is not whether therapy works, but rather
whether it is worth the cost, whether the gains justify the
expenses; but issues of this sort are, as I argued earlier,
not questions that science was designed to answer. They
are, rather, questions of values.
Regardless of how one might feel about behavior mod-
ification as a therapeutic system, there is no approach to
therapy that makes more lavish use of experimental
methods and data collection. Behavior therapists, how-
ever, are not likely to question the basic premise that
therapy works. Rather, if a particular approaeh to therapy
is not working, they will begin experimenting with
smaller therapeutic steps, different stimuli, more power-
ful reinforcers, a different schedule of reinforcement, and
so on. In the face of failure, these clinicians assail their
clinical procedures, confident that some combination of
52 306-312 November 1987
variables will get the client on the proper track. They use
experimental methods to evaluate therapy but not to ask
the basic question, Does therapy work?
My second reason for discouraging research to test
whether therapy works is because I am convinced that no
experimental outcome would convince a clinician that
therapy does not work, and I do not believe it is useful to
do research when only one outcome would be aecepted.
Whenever an experiment is designed to evaluate the
effectiveness of therapy, it is necessary to make innumer-
able decisions concerning the kind of therapy, its dura-
tion and scheduling, the setting in which it is to be
administered, the selection of the clinicians, and a host of
other variables. The interactions among these variables
are so numerous, and so complex, the possibility is always
open that a different combination would be more benefi-
cial. Thus, if a study fails to demonstrate that therapy
works, the scientist will redo it using some other version
of therapy or a different combination of variables. Be-
cause we already know in our professional bones that
some form of therapy is bound to change a client's
behavior, an apparent failure with a particular combina-
tion of variables is always an invitation to devise a new
constellation rather than to conclude in any general sense
that therapy is not effectual.
There are treatment designs that are potentially more
informative than global tests of effectiveness of therapy.
Many years ago Reynolds (1963) urged that special edu-
cation treatment research should look at interactions
between treatment methods and client characteristics.
Borkovec and Bauer (1982) and Kazdin (1982) also sug-
gest that psychological treatment research should take
into account the interactions among contributing varia-
bles. Kendall and Norton-Ford (1982) comment that the
search for a therapeutic "holy grail" has been abandoned
in favor of"attempts to identify the therapeutic interven-
tion and type of therapist that will be most likely to
produce results that are most important in the case of each
different type of client" (p. 434). Yates (1981) has sug-
gested that therapy research should always be designed
in such a way as to test the validity of a theory rather than
to test a particular therapeutic method, so that at the very
least the research will provide some fundamental infor-
mation about the nature of a behavioral process. Yates
argued that we know too little about behavior and its
modifleation to be concerned with comparing available
therapies. We need, instead, to design clinical research to
advance basle behavioral knowledge.
The need that clinicians and administrators feel to
establish the efficacy of therapy is a response to real and
urgent pressures applied by politicians, legislators, phy-
sicians, and the clients themselves as part of a general
movement toward accountability. We are obliged to es-
tablish the importance and usefulness of our work. It is
also entirely legitimate that the officials who make public
policy and allocate public resources should ask penetrat-
ing questions about the efficacy of therapy. We dare not
assume that because our motives are pure and our dedi-
cation high, there is no need to demonstrate how" we
contribute to the public welfare. However, the way to

educate the public is not, in my opinion, through disin-
genuous research whose sole purpose is to demonstrate
convincingly that therapy works. Medawar (1984, p. 18)
has c o m m e n t e d that "political and administrative prob-
lems are not in general scientific in character, so that a
scientific education or a successful research career do not
equip one to solve them." I believe that research de-
signed to convince the public of the efficacy of therapy is
political rather than scientific and is therefore b e y o n d the
limits of science. The task of enlisting public recognition
and support is one ofpersuasi0n and education, not one of
scientific inquiry.
CONCLUSION
I have attempted to apply some of Medawar's notions
about the limits of science to communication disorders.
Science is a very powerful tool for answering the ques-
tions it was designed to answer, but there are realms
where science is not the fiaost effective approach to
elucidating and solving problems. Questions of societal,
professional, and personal values are important indeed,
but they are not the kinds of questions science was
designed to answer. We n e e d to find another forum for
discussing these issues, and we n e e d to prepare students
to deal with such questions outside the bounds of sci-
ence. Other questions should not be pressed into the
machinery of science because they are best treated
through logical analysis. Science will not bring clarity to
concepts that are vaguely or inconsistently defined. Fi-
nally, scientists ought to pose questions whose solutions
will elucidate basic behavioral processes rather than
questions that are motivated by political considerations.
Research should not be u n d e r t a k e n if the outcome is
foreordained and incapable of changing the scientist's
conceptions. Problems that fall outside the limits of
science are no less important than those that science can
properly address, but they require alternative modes of
inquiry, and it is necessary to recognize the limits of
science so that the alternatives will be invoked w h e n
appropriate.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Portions of this paper were prepared while the author was on
sabbatical leave to the University of California, Santa Barbara,
1985-1986. The author is grateful to Roger and Janis Ingham for
numerous stimulating conversations concerning the role of sci-
ence in communication disorders.
REFERENCES
BORKOVEC,T. D., & BAUER, R. M. (1982). Experimental design
in group outcome research. In A. S. Bellack, M. Hersen, &
A. E. Kazdin (Eds.), International handbook of behavior mod-
ification and therapy (pp. 139--165). New York: Plenum Press.
SIEGEL: Limits of Science 311
BROWN, S.J. (1956). Retarded speech development. In W.
Johnson, S.J. Brown, J.J. Curtis, C. E. Edney, & J. Keaster
(Eds.), Speech handicapped school children (pp. 301-329).
New York: Harper & Bros.
DARLEY, F. L. (1972). The efficacy of language rehabilitation in
asphasia. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 37, 3-21.
FLOWER, R. M. (1983). Looking backward and looking forward:
Some views through a four-decade window. In N. S. Rees &
T. L. Sn0pe (Eds.), Proceedings of the 1983 National Confer-
ence on Undergraduate, Graduate, and Continuing Education
(pp. 9-15). St. Paul, MN: American Speech-Language-Hearing
Association.
JOHNSTON,J. M., & PENNYPACKER,H. S. (1980). Strategies and
tactics of human behavioral research. Hillsdale, NJ: Law-
rence Erlbaum.
KAZDIN,A. E. (1982). Single-case experimental designs in clin-
ical research and practice. In A.E. Kazdin & A.H. Tuma
(Eds.), Single-case research designs (pp. 33-47). San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
KENDALL, P. C., & NORTON-FOP,D, J. D. (1982). Therapy out-
come research methods. In P. C. Kendall & J. N. Butcher
(Eds.), Handbook of research methods in clinical psychology
(pp. 429-460). New York: Wiley.
KENT, R. D. (1983). How can we improve the role of research and
educate speech-language pathologists and audiologists to be
competent users of research? In N. S. Rees (Ed.), Proceedings
of the 1983 Conference on Undergraduate, Graduate, and
Continuing Education (pp. 76--86). St. Paul, MN: American
Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
KUHN, T. S. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions (2nd
ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
KUHN, T. S. (1986). The histories of science: Diverse worlds for
diverse audiences. Academe, 72, 29--33.
MARTIN, R., & HAROLDSON,S. (1986). Stuttering as involuntary
loss of speech control: Barking up a new tree. Journal of
Speech and Hearing Disorders, 51,187-189.
MARX, M. H. (1951). The general nature of theory construction.
In M. Marx (Ed.), Psychological theory (pp. 4--19). New York:
MacMillan.
MEDAWAR,P. B. (1979). Advice to a young scientist. New York:
Harper & Row.
MEDAWAR,P. B. (1984). The limits of science. New York: Harper
& Row.
PADEN, E. P. (1970). A history of the American Speech and
Hearing Association: I925-1958. Washington, DC: American
Speech and Hearing Association.
PERKINS, W. H. (1983). The problem of definition: Commentary
on "stuttering." Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders., 48,
246--249.
PERKINS,W. H. (1984). Stuttering as a categorical event: Barking
up the wrong tree--Reply to Wingate. Journal of Speech and
Hearing Disorders, 49, 431-434.
PERKINS, W. H. (1986a, February). Functions and malfunctions
of theories in therapies. Asha, 28, 31-33.
PERKINS,W. H. (1986b). More bite for a bark: Epilogue to Martin
and Haroldson's letter. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disor-
ders, 51,190-191.
POPPER, K. R. (1968). The logic of scientific discovery. New
York: Harper & Row.
REES, N. S., & SNOPE, T. L. (Eds.). (1983). Proceedings of the
1983 National Conference on Undergraduate, Graduate, and
Continuing Education. St. Paul, MN: American Speech-Lan-
guage-Hearing Association.
REYNOLDS, M. C. (1963). A strategy for research. Exceptional
Children, 29, 213-219.
SIEGEL, G. M., KATSUKI,J., & POTECHIN,G. (1985). Response to
"Contemporary accounts of the cognition/language relation-
ship" (Rice, 1983). Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders,
50, 287-317.
VAN RIPER, C. (1939). Speech correction. New York: Prentice-
Hall,
WERTZ, R. T. (1983). Language intervention context and settings
312 Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders
of the aphasic adult: When? In J. Miller, D. E. Yoder, & R.
Schiefelbusch (Eds.), Contemporary issues in language inter-
vention. Asha Reports, 12, 196-220.
WEST, R. W., & ANSBERrtY, M. (1968). The rehabilitation of
speech (4th ed.). New York: Harper & Row.
WlNGATE, M. E. (1984). Definition is the problem. Journal of
Speech and Hearing DisoCders, 49, 429-430.
YATES, A.J. (1981). Behavior therapy: Past, present, future--
Imperfect? General Psychology Review, 1,269-291.
52 306--312 N o v e m b e r 1987
ZUPaFF, G. E. (1985). Behaviorism: A conceptual reconstruc-
tion. New York: Columbia University Press.
Received November 20, 1986
Accepted January 26, 1987
Requests for reprints should be sent to Gerald M. Siegel,
Ph.D., Department of Communication Disorders, University of
Minnesota, 110 Shevlin Hall, Minneapolis, MN 55455.
 The Limits of Science in Communication Disorders

Gerald M. Siegel
J Speech Hear Disord 1987;52;306-312

This article has been cited by 2 HighWire-hosted article(s) which you can access for free at:

http://jshd.asha.org/cgi/content/abstract/52/4/306#otherarticles

This information is current as of May 20, 2011

This article, along with updated information and services, is

located on the World Wide Web at:
http://jshd.asha.org/cgi/content/abstract/52/4/306