Purpose:
The primary aim of this scoping review was to categorize language therapy goals reported in intervention studies for preschoolers (i.e., children from birth to 5;0 [years;months]) with language difficulties and disorders within the World Health Organization's International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) framework. A secondary aim was to determine whether different therapy goals were reported for two language difficulty/disorder subtypes (i.e., comparing language difficulty/disorder associated with a biomedical condition to those without an associated biomedical condition).
Method:
The scoping review followed Arksey and O'Malley (2005) guidelines. Articles were retrieved from speechBITE, with age (under 5 years), intervention area (language), and study design (all but systematic reviews and clinical practice guidelines) specified as inclusion criteria. Language goals were extracted and categorized into the ICF components, and the distribution of goals across ICF components was compared for studies involving children with the two language difficulty/disorder subtypes.
Results:
A total of 287 articles were identified; 140 met inclusion criteria. Of the 293 goals extracted, 48% aligned with the activities component of the ICF framework, followed by participation (26%), environmental factors (20%), body functions and structures (3%), and personal factors (3%). Most participation-focused goals were reported from intervention studies involving preschoolers with a language difficulty/disorder associated with a biomedical condition.
Conclusions:
Few participation-focused goals were reported in intervention studies for preschoolers with language difficulty/disorder without an associated condition. Future work is needed to support integrating the ICF framework in goal setting for both research and practice.
Purpose:
The COVID-19 pandemic required most pediatric rehabilitation programs to shift to a virtual delivery format without the benefits of evidence to support this transition. Our study explored families' experiences participating virtually in
More Than Words
, a program for parents of autistic children, with the goal of generating new evidence to inform both virtual service delivery and program development.
Method:
Twenty-one families who recently completed a virtual
More Than Words
program participated in a semistructured interview. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed in NVivo using a top-down deductive approach that referenced a modified Dynamic Knowledge Transfer Capacity model.
Results:
Six themes capturing families' experiences with different components of virtual service delivery were identified: (a) experiences participating from home, (b) accessing the
More Than Words
program, (c) delivery methods and program materials, (d) the speech-language pathologist–caregiver relationship, (e) new skills learned, and (f) virtual program engagement.
Conclusions:
Most participants had a positive experience in the virtual program. Suggested areas for improvement included the time and length of intervention sessions and increasing social connections with other families. Practice considerations related to the importance of childcare during group sessions and having another adult to support the videorecording of parent–child interactions. Clinical implications include suggestions for how clinicians can create a positive virtual experience for families.
Supplemental Material:
https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.22177601
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.