Diagnostic Reasoning

Diagnostic reasoning refers to the ways clinicians reach a decision about the assessment process to follow for diagnosis of a disorder as related to patient care and outcomes. In the field of speech and language therapy, there is limited research on the specific topic of diagnostic reasoning in contrast to other health care-related disciplines such as medicine, nursing, physical therapy, and occupational therapy where there is a large body of work.

The value of recognizing how clinicians make decisions about the planning or consideration of the assessment process for the diagnosis of a disorder should not be underestimated. It is well known that clinicians who demonstrate incompetency or ineffectiveness in their undertaking of a clinical assessment put patients at risk for misdiagnosis leading to inappropriate treatment ...