Assessing communicative participation in preschool children with the Focus on the Outcomes of Communication Under Six: a scoping review

Abstract

Aim To describe uses of the Focus on the Outcomes of Communication Under Six (FOCUS) in research with children with and without various communication disorders since its publication in 2010. Method Six databases were searched for the term ‘Focus on the Outcomes of Communication Under Six’. With additional searches we ascertained 70 articles, of which 25 met inclusion criteria for full review and data extraction. Results The FOCUS has been used in research across multiple countries, purposes, populations, contexts, and versions. Evaluative studies have described: the development of children’s communicative participation skills and factors that impact the development of communicative participation; the impact of specific interventions on communicative participation; how FOCUS captures change relative to measures of impairment; and how FOCUS performs when used at different intervals. Adaptations have included: use of the FOCUS as a descriptive or discriminative tool; use with children outside the validated age range; use of select items; and use with typically developing children. Interpretation The FOCUS is used worldwide in research and practice, and much has been learned about children’s communicative participation. Future research is needed to explore the relationship between children’s impairments and their communicative participation, develop a FOCUS App, and develop and validate a FOCUS for school‐age children.

Focus on the Outcomes of Communication Under Six: Validation of Language Skills in the Jamaican Context

“…In concert with the emerging construct validity evidence, this is one of the first studies to attempt to validate the FOCUS Profile scores (cf. Cunningham et al, 2020). In the present case, in relation to preschoolers’ functional language use and expressive language skills as such, these findings fulfill calls to investigate the validity evidence for the use of the FOCUS Profile scores and also contribute to what is known about the relationship between children’s communicative participation and their speech and language abilities.…”

“…Second, this study provides preliminary validity evidence for the use of the FOCUS Profile scores (cf. Cunningham et al, 2020); offering a broader understanding about the relationship between speech and language abilities and communicative participation and further extending the psychometric evidence of the FOCUS measure. The identified associations between communicative participation and pragmatic skills may contribute to our understanding about the relevance of different pragmatic abilities across various multilingual/cultural populations.…”

“…These distinctions have also prompted several researchers to translate the FOCUS (e.g., Afrikaans, Bornman & Louw, 2021; German, Neumann et al, 2017), in response to the need to adapt established measures that consider personal and environmental factors for culturally and linguistically diverse contexts that will meet the needs of unique populations. While studies investigating the translation of the FOCUS have demonstrated its applicability as a measurement tool appropriate for diverse contexts, the research has primarily focused on monolingual speakers of other majority languages (Cunningham et al, 2020).…”

Strengths and challenges of the COSMIN tools in outcome measures appraisal: A case example for speech–language therapy

“…The paper will also have implications for test developers who will want to understand a new standard for evaluating outcome measures. This work involves the secondary analysis of the data collected during a recent scoping review of the literature related to the FOCUS (Cunningham et al 2020). More specifically, we used the findings from this review to identify studies that reported psychomet-ric properties of the FOCUS, which we appraised using the COSMIN tools.…”

“…More specifically, we used the findings from this review to identify studies that reported psychomet-ric properties of the FOCUS, which we appraised using the COSMIN tools. Cunningham et al (2020) identified 25 publications that reported on either the development or the application of the FOCUS. In the current study, we reviewed these 25 publications to identify those that reported psychometric properties of the FOCUS using the following inclusion criteria: (1) the article was peer reviewed and about the English-language version of the FOCUS or its derivative (i.e., the FOCUS-34); (2) the study evaluated the psychometric properties of the FO-CUS; and (3) the article was published in English.…”