Caroline Bowen PhD CPSP is an Australian Speech-Language Pathologist. She is an Honorary Associate in Linguistics at Macquarie University in Sydney Australia, an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Health Sciences (Speech-Language Pathology) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban South Africa, a Certified Practicing Member of Speech Pathology Australia, a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, a Life Member of Speech Pathology Australia, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists. Known for her www.speech-language-therapy.com website and her interest in Children’s Speech Sound Disorders, Dr Caroline Bowen /ˈkæɹəˈlɑen ˈboʊwən/ practiced in Australia as a clinical speech-language pathologist in New South Wales for over 40 years, retiring in 2011.

Since 2005 she has presented invited child speech-related Continuing Professional Development (CPD) workshops and study days in all Australian states and territories, and in Canada, Denmark, Éire, England, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Norway, the Philippines, Portugal, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey and the US.

Using her 70th birthday in December 2014 as a sign to slow down and reduce her workload, she now offers just five “customisable” CPD events, which she will consider presenting anywhere. Caroline has on-going appointments as an Honorary Associate in Linguistics at Macquarie University in Sydney NSW Australia, and as an Honorary Research Fellow in Speech-Language Pathology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa.

She and Professor Pamela Snow of La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia have co-authored a book, Making Sense of Interventions for Children’s Developmental Disorders (Bowen & Snow, 2017) published by J&R Press, and, among other projects, she is currently engaged in collaborative research, led by Associate Professor Bronwyn Hemsley of The University of Newcastle NSW Australia, into Twitter and other social media use by SLPs/SLTs.

Presentation Title: Treatment Choices: @TxChoices

Abstract:

It took Professor Pamela Snow and Dr Caroline Bowen two and a half years to research and write Making Sense of Interventions for Children’s Developmental Disorders, during which time they ran a Twitter handle: @TxChoices (which continues). T_x is medical shorthand for “treatment”, and the authors intended “treatment choices” to signpost that parents, clinicians, and educators must choose from various options, including watchful waiting, when considering clinical and educational interventions for children with the disorders discussed in the book.

The book covers interventions for: auditory processing difficulties, autism spectrum disorders, cerebral palsy, communication disorders, dysphagia, emotional difficulties, intellectual disability, literacy difficulties, sensory impairments, specific learning disability, and more. The reader is also introduced to a range of made-up and/or contested conditions: Amalgam Illness, Cerebellar Developmental Delay, Functional Disconnection syndrome, Gameboy Disease, Gut and Physiology syndrome (GAPS), Gut and Psychology syndrome (GAPS again), Irritable Baby syndrome, Irlen Syndrome, Magnetic Field Deficiency syndrome, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Nonverbal Learning Disability, Retained Neonatal Reflexes™, Retained Reflex syndrome, Sensory Integration Disorder, Wilson’s Temperature syndrome, etcetera, etcetera, and their associated diets, exercises, pills, potions and tinctures.

In this presentation Caroline discusses the reasons she and Pamela were drawn to write a book for parents and professionals, exposing popularly adopted pseudoscientific interventions that flourish in the fields of audiology, dietetics, education, psychology, medicine, speech-language pathology, and allied professions; complementary and alternative medicine; and in the hothousing industry around typically developing babies and children.

She goes on the describe the course of comparing these approaches with legitimate practices that are underpinned by critical reasoning, sound theory and scientific research evidence, and what the authors found. In the process, she gives delegates a whirlwind tour of time-money-and-opportunity wasting interventions such as: Arrowsmith™, Auditory Integration Training (Berard Method, Johansen Individualized Auditory Stimulation, Samonas™ Sound Therapy, The Listening Program., Therapeutic Listening™, and Tomatis.), Behavioural Optometry, BrainGym., Cellfield™, Etalon, Fast ForWord., GemIIni™ Discrete Video Modelling, HEGL/Heguru™, Interactive Metronome, Irlen, Kinesiotaping, Learning Breakthrough™, Myofascial Release, MNRI., the McGuire Program, NS-OMT, PROMPT˝, Reading Recovery™, Shichida™, the Son-Rise Program, Solisten, TalkTools, Therapeutic Speech Massage, and Verbal Motor Learning (VML). Finally, she touches on keys to information literacy and pointers to possible solutions to the ethical dilemmas that arise in the face of practices associated with no convincing evidence.