CONDUCTING CLINICAL-TRIALS IN THE PUBLIC-SCHOOLS

This manuscript explores the general whys and hows clinicians in the p ublic school can and should be involved in clinical trials research an d describes the Communication Sciences and Disorders Research Group (C SDRG). The CSDRG is a group of clinicians, clinical investigators, bas ic scientists, epidemiologists, and statisticians in communication sci ences and disorders (funded by the National Institutes of Health) who came together to design and implement clinical trials examining the ef fectiveness of interventions with speech, hearing, language, balance, and voice/swallowing disorders. Clinical trials are a very specific ty pe of treatment research requiring the randomization of children to se veral different treatment arms. Because of the required characteristic s of clinical trials, conducting them in the school setting poses uniq ue challenges and logistic issues that are described, along with poten tial solutions.