flynn002

©CartoonStock.com Some people are really uncomfortable with the idea that psychology studies should be replicated. The most striking example is Jason Mitchell, Professor at Harvard University, who famously remarked in an essay that " unsuccessful experiments have no meaningful scientific value ". Hard on his heels now comes UCLA's Matthew Lieberman, who has published a piece in Edge on the replication crisis. Lieberman is careful to point out that he thinks we need replication. Indeed, he thinks no initial study should be taken on face value - it is, according to him, just a scientific anecdote, and we'll always need more data. He emphasises:" Anyone who says that replication isn't absolutely essential to the success of science is pretty crazy on that issue, as far as I'm concerned. " It seems that what he doesn't like, though, is how people are reporting their replication attempts, especially when they fail to confirm the initial finding. ...

The view from the Tower of Babel This week saw the publication of a special issue of the International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders , focusing on labels for children with unexplained language difficulties. Two target articles, one by Sheena Reilly and colleagues, and one by me, are accompanied by an editorial by Susan Ebbels, twenty commentaries, and a final paper where Sheena and I join forces with Bruce Tomblin to try to synthesise the different viewpoints. These articles are free for anyone to access. Terminological battles are often boring and seldom come to any consensus, so why are we putting time into this thorny issue? Quite simply, because it really matters. As we argue in the articles, having a label affects how a children are perceived, what help they are offered, and how seriously their problems are taken. 'Specific Language Impairment' has very poor name recognition compared to dyslexia and autism, despite being at least as common. Furthermore, u...