Highlighted Databases: Communication Sciences and Disorders

In November we highlight research resources that support teaching, learning, and research in all aspects of human communication, as well as the prevention and treatment of its disorders across the lifespan.  Subjects within are speech, hearing, language, literacy, and bilingualism; disorders of human communication; and swallowing and remedial procedures for such disorders -- all of which draw upon a wide range of scientific, medical, and educational  databases to help prepare students for professional opportunities in educational settings, community speech and language centers, rehabilitation centers, hospital clinics, private practices, state departments of education, health departments, federal agencies, and colleges and universities.

ASHA, The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association is the national professional, scientific, and credentialing association for 218,000 members and affiliates. Content includes audiology; speech-language pathology; speech, language, and hearing research and services; and audiology and speech-language pathology support.

Biological Abstracts  is an index with abstracts to periodicals in biology and the life sciences. Provides access to biological and medical research findings, clinical studies, and discoveries of new organisms. Coverage is international, and includes biochemistry, biomedicine, biotechnology, genetics, microbiology, and pharmacology.

BioMed Central  provides access to 207 open access biological and biomedical research journals, as well as current reports and meeting abstracts. BioMed Central offers information about current controlled trials, as well as topics in modern biology.

CINAHL Plus with Full Text  is the online version of the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, providing full text for more than 750 journals indexed in CINAHL from 1981-present.

ClinicalKey provides current information to clinical health care providers via an aggregated content service. Additionally, it includes clinical overviews, clinical trials, drug monographs, clinical guidelines, patient education handouts, images & multimedia, procedure videos, clinical calculators, and indexing and abstracts from the National Library of Medicine’s MEDLINE database. 

Cochrane Library is a collection of six databases that contain different types of high-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making: the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews; the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials; the Cochrane Methodology Register; the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects; the Health Technology Assessment Database; and the NHS Economic Evaluation Database. There is a a seventh database that provides information about groups in The Cochrane Collaboration.

ComDisDome is an indexing and abstracting tool covering the communications disorders literature, with a focus on speech-language pathology and audiology.  It covers areas including Audiologic Management, Audiology, Hearing Assessment, Speech-Language Pathology, etc.

EMBASE  describes itself as "a highly versatile, multipurpose and up-to-date biomedical research database. It covers the most important international biomedical literature from 1947 to the present day and all articles are indexed in depth using Elsevier's Life Science thesaurus Embase Indexing and Emtree."

Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA) covers the international literature in linguistics and related disciplines in the language sciences. Documents indexed include journal articles, book reviews, books, book chapters, dissertations and working papers. Content includes Phonetics, Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, and Semantics.

MEDLINE covers the international literature on biomedicine, including the allied health fields and the biological and physical sciences, humanities, and information science as they relate to medicine and health care. Information is indexed from approximately 3,900 journals published world-wide. Our library makes the database available via the Ebsco platform; ISI Web of Knowledge Medline (CU) and Ovid MEDLINE (CU) are also available via Columbia.

PubMed "provides access to over 16 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles back to the 1950s. Includes links to many sites providing full text articles and other related resources."

Relevant Education Databases:

ERIC provides access to information from journals from Current Index of Journals in Education and Resources in Education Index. Content includes journal articles, research reports, curriculum and teaching guides, conference papers, dissertations and theses, and books dating back to 1966.

Education Full Text provides full text from over 350 journals as far back as 1996 and indexing of over 770 periodicals dating back to 1983. Includes in-depth coverage of special education, adult education, continuing education, literacy standards, multicultural/ethnic education, teaching methods, and over 100,000 controlled and cross-referenced names of educational tests.

Education Index Retrospective Indexes more than 800 periodicals and yearbooks, and cites approximately 850,000 articles, including book reviews. The database provides information on societal trends affecting education, including segregation, multiculturalism, feminism, and economic developments.

Education Research Complete is a bibliographic and full-text database covering scholarly research and information relating to all areas of education. Topics covered include all levels of education from early childhood to higher education, and all educational specialties, such as multilingual education, health education, and testing.

Professional Development Collection provides a highly specialized collection of nearly 520 education journals, including more than 350 peer-reviewed titles and contains more than 200 educational reports.

Be sure to see additional resources in the Communication Sciences and Disorders Research Guide.