Parental Perspectives and Experiences of Working With Speech and Language Therapists to Support Home Practice for Their Child With a Speech Sound Disorder: A Qualitative Study.
Katherine Pritchard, Vesna Stojanovik, Jill Titterington and 1 others
Parents of young children with speech sound disorder said the SLT's connection with their child was the biggest factor in whether they did home practice.
Active involvement in sessions and clear instructions made them feel capable. Long gaps between appointments were the main barrier.
Key findings
1The relationship between the SLT and the child (and the parent) was the factor that most shaped parents' experience of sessions and their motivation to complete home practice. Parents who felt the SLT was warm, energetic and engaged with their child reported higher motivation; where the relationship was poor, parents disengaged or withdrew the child.
2Parents reported that active involvement in the session (trying the technique themselves, using a checklist while observing, receiving feedback from the SLT) was what made them feel capable of delivering home practice. A combination of observation, discussion, hands-on practice, feedback and self-reflection was described as the most effective way to learn.
3Long gaps between sessions (6 to 8 weeks or more) and vague instructions ("just practise") were the most commonly reported barriers. Parents felt unsupported between appointments and uncertain about what to do at home, which reduced their confidence and completion of practice.
Still to come
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What it does not show
All nine participants were mothers. Two fathers who signed up could not attend due to scheduling, so fathers' experiences of working with SLTs on home practice are absent from the data. Eight of the nine parents had the resources to seek alternative provision (private, university, or multiple services) when unhappy with NHS speech and language therapy, so their experiences may not reflect families who have no choice but to accept the service they are given. All interviewers were qualified SLTs, which may have influenced what parents felt comfortable sharing, particularly about negative experiences. Four participants were known to the first author before the study, and one participant developed a relationship with a second interviewer through the PPIE group before being interviewed. Some parents had received intervention targeting both language and speech, and at times found it hard to separate the two, so some data may not be specific to speech sound disorder. The sample is small (9) and drawn from a single country (UK), so the themes may not transfer to other service models or populations.
Declared interests
Funded by the University of Reading. Author Dr Jill Titterington is editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, the journal in which this paper was published.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read these themes as evidence that specific SLT techniques (checklists, games, active involvement, multimodal explanation) improve home practice completion or child speech outcomes. This is a qualitative study of 9 mothers' experiences, not a test of whether any technique works. Fathers' perspectives are absent, as two fathers dropped out due to scheduling. The themes describe what these parents found helpful or unhelpful, not what has been shown to change a child's speech.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →