The influence of active listening on parents' perceptions of clinical empathy in a stuttering assessment: A preliminary study.
Robyn L Croft, Courtney T Byrd, Ellen M Kelly
PMID 36327574WHAT IT FOUND
Parents of children who stutter rated a clinician as significantly more empathic when she used high eye contact and paraphrased the parent's concern during the first minute of an interview.
This effect held regardless of the parent's age, education, or level of worry.
Key findings
01Clinicians who used high client-directed eye gaze and paraphrasing were rated as significantly more empathic than those who used low eye gaze and no paraphrasing.
02Parental age, educational level, and self-reported concern about their child's stuttering did not predict how empathic the clinician was perceived to be.
03The study manipulated two active listening skills simultaneously, so it is not possible to determine if eye gaze or paraphrasing was the more effective component.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
This was a preliminary study using simulated interactions (video vignettes) rather than real clinical encounters. The videos were only 62 seconds long, so findings apply specifically to the opening minute of an assessment. The clinician's behavior differed in two ways at once (eye gaze and paraphrasing), so it is impossible to know which specific behavior drove the increase in perceived empathy. The sample was homogeneous regarding race, ethnicity, and gender, limiting generalizability to diverse populations. Eye contact norms vary across cultures; this study was conducted in a Western context where high eye contact is typically viewed positively.
Declared interests
The authors declared no financial or non-financial conflicts of interest. The study was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD).
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that eye contact alone causes this effect. The clinician in the high-empathy condition used both high eye contact and paraphrasing, while the low-empathy clinician used low eye contact and no paraphrasing. You cannot separate the contribution of these two behaviors based on this study.