TY - JOUR
T1 - Involving Caregivers of Autistic Toddlers in Early Intervention
T2 - Common Practice or Exception to the Norm?
AU - Lee, Jordan
AU - Kaat, Aaron J.
AU - Roberts, Megan York
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (1R01DC014709). The authors would like to thank the participating families and speech-language pathologists for their commitment, as well as the staff and clinicians at the Early Intervention Research Group for their assistance with data collection throughout the study.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
PY - 2022/7
Y1 - 2022/7
N2 - Purpose: Family-centered practice (FCP) is a core component of early intervention (EI) associated with improved child and family outcomes, but little is known about community-based speech-language pathologists’ (SLPs’) inclusion of families in EI. Many caregivers of autistic children experience caregiving-related stress, making these intervention principles especially critical to the provision of optimal services. This study aimed to characterize EI SLPs’ use of FCP coaching strategies and the quality of caregiver–SLP relationships. Method: Participants included 25 families with an autistic toddler and their EI SLP. One intervention session for each SLP–family dyad was recorded and coded for the SLP’s use of FCP coaching strategies. Caregivers and SLPs com-pleted surveys about their working alliance, caregiver perceptions of family-centered care, and SLPs’ approach to FCP. Results: SLPs primarily use child-directed strategies without caregiver involve-ment. When involving caregivers, SLPs infrequently use coaching strategies that are important for caregiver learning and collaboration (e.g., joint planning and guided practice with feedback). However, caregivers perceived their child’s services to be highly family-centered, and caregivers and SLPs rated their working alliance to be of high quality. Conclusions: The presence of strong caregiver–SLP working alliances along-side infrequent usage of effective coaching strategies indicates that SLPs may engage caregivers in ways that are perceived to be highly collaborative but are not optimal for caregiver involvement in all aspects of their child’s services (goal setting and implementation of intervention). Consideration of family preferences and SLP beliefs about FCP will inform ways to disseminate FCPs needed to optimize families’ capacities to support their child’s development. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.20113550.
AB - Purpose: Family-centered practice (FCP) is a core component of early intervention (EI) associated with improved child and family outcomes, but little is known about community-based speech-language pathologists’ (SLPs’) inclusion of families in EI. Many caregivers of autistic children experience caregiving-related stress, making these intervention principles especially critical to the provision of optimal services. This study aimed to characterize EI SLPs’ use of FCP coaching strategies and the quality of caregiver–SLP relationships. Method: Participants included 25 families with an autistic toddler and their EI SLP. One intervention session for each SLP–family dyad was recorded and coded for the SLP’s use of FCP coaching strategies. Caregivers and SLPs com-pleted surveys about their working alliance, caregiver perceptions of family-centered care, and SLPs’ approach to FCP. Results: SLPs primarily use child-directed strategies without caregiver involve-ment. When involving caregivers, SLPs infrequently use coaching strategies that are important for caregiver learning and collaboration (e.g., joint planning and guided practice with feedback). However, caregivers perceived their child’s services to be highly family-centered, and caregivers and SLPs rated their working alliance to be of high quality. Conclusions: The presence of strong caregiver–SLP working alliances along-side infrequent usage of effective coaching strategies indicates that SLPs may engage caregivers in ways that are perceived to be highly collaborative but are not optimal for caregiver involvement in all aspects of their child’s services (goal setting and implementation of intervention). Consideration of family preferences and SLP beliefs about FCP will inform ways to disseminate FCPs needed to optimize families’ capacities to support their child’s development. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.20113550.
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U2 - 10.1044/2022_AJSLP-21-00246
DO - 10.1044/2022_AJSLP-21-00246
M3 - Article
C2 - 35749738
AN - SCOPUS:85134271507
VL - 31
SP - 1755
EP - 1770
JO - American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology
JF - American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology
SN - 1058-0360
IS - 4
ER -