How speech and language therapists and parents work together in the therapeutic process for children with speech sound disorder: A scoping review.
Katherine Pritchard, Vesna Stojanovik, Jill Titterington and 1 others
PMID 39555679WHAT IT FOUND
Parents value therapy that fits their daily life and clear coaching on why and how to do home practice.
But therapists often lack confidence in this role, and homework is rarely followed up. Individualization helps engagement, yet it is unclear where flexibility compromises treatment fidelity.
Key findings
01Home practice barriers include busy family lives, social disadvantage, and complex dynamics, while facilitators involve fitting practice into existing routines.
02Therapists report parent-related barriers like lack of capability most often, but also cite their own lack of time, confidence, and training as significant obstacles.
03Homework is frequently assigned but rarely monitored or followed up in subsequent sessions, and parents often lack clarity on their specific role.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The review excluded non-English studies, limiting the perspective to mostly Australian and US contexts. Parent participants were predominantly mothers, so findings may not apply to fathers or other caregivers. As a scoping review, the quality of the included studies was not appraised. There is limited evidence on how much flexibility in home practice can be allowed before compromising treatment fidelity.
Declared interests
The authors did not declare any specific conflicts of interest in the provided text, though one author is noted as the Editor-in-Chief of the journal.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that individualizing therapy to fit a family's lifestyle always improves outcomes. The review found that while flexibility helps engagement, it is unclear where this flexibility crosses the line into compromising the fidelity and efficacy of the evidence-based intervention.