Approaches to communication assessment with children and adults with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities.
Darren Chadwick, Susan Buell, Juliet Goldbart
PMID 30430716WHAT IT FOUND
Speech and language therapists working with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities in the UK commonly mixed published and unpublished assessments, adapting or creating tools because published ones did not fully capture early communication.
Key findings
0142 of 55 respondents reported using both published and unpublished assessments.
02Only three published assessments were cited by more than 5 SLTs: the Preverbal Communication Assessment, the Affective Communication Assessment, and the Triple C.
03Unpublished assessments included adapting existing assessments and merging them to create a more functionally useful assessment.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The survey was UK focused, so it may not apply elsewhere. Participants were self-selected and snowballed, so the sample may not represent all UK speech and language therapists. The paper did not report how many therapists work in this area, so representativeness is unknown. Only therapists were surveyed, so teachers and other professionals were not included. Questionnaire responses did not always explain why an assessment was useful, and some responses may reflect ideal practice rather than routine practice. Some reported assessments were developmentally inappropriate for people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities, but the survey could not explain why they were used. Unpublished and adapted assessments were not described in enough detail to judge their quality. The questionnaire was created for the study, so its quality is not known.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that any assessment improves communication. It reports what therapists used and why, not measured patient outcomes.