None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
Introduction: Children who are hospitalised for an extended time frame are often cared for in a ward environment that does not provide input to promote speech and language development. These children are at an increased risk for language delay. Other barriers to early communication development for children who are hospitalised for a long stay include limited opportunities to develop early language skills and learn to make sounds. Speech Pathology services at the Royal Children’s Hospital are provided in order of priority to the most urgent and severe cases first. This often means that the assessment and treatment of children with feeding and swallowing disorders are prioritised first, and there is little time left to provide early speech and language therapy for children who are hospitalised for a long stay. Early intervention is important to give children the best chance of developing speech and language skills. It is important for Speech Pathologists to use their time wisely when providing services to children on the wards, so a new model of providing language therapy has been developed. Group therapy and parent education sessions will be trialled to see how beneficial they are for parents and children. Aims: This project aims to compare the usefulness of individual speech-language therapy with group therapy for children who are hospitalised for an extended stay (longer than 5 weeks). Specifically the aims are: (a) To trial a new group speech-language therapy model for young children admitted to hospital for a long stay. This will be compared individual speech-language therapy. (b) To provide parents of children admitted to hospital for a long stay with strategies and support to encourage their child’s speech and language development. Methods: Two groups of participants will be invited to be involved in this study: approximately 34 infants who are admitted to the Royal Children’s Hospital for a long stay (5+ weeks) and referred to the Allied Health Infant Team or the Speech Pathology Department. After consent has been gained, both groups will be asked to complete an age appropriate communication screen (including assessments of early language skills, receptive and expressive language and early speech sound production). Parent’s interaction style with their child will be formally measured and parents will be asked to complete a survey about how confident they are in encouraging their child’s early speech and language development. After initial assessment, children on the general medical ward will be allocated to participate in group speech-language therapy. Children who are from other wards will be provided with individual speech-language therapy because they will be unable to freely mix with other patients due to infection control rules. Each group will receive 5 weeks of therapy 2 x a week. After the therapy, children’s speech and language will be assessed again, using the same tests as before. Parent’s interaction style with their child will be formally measured again and parents will be asked to complete a survey about how confident they are in encouraging their child’s early language development and how beneficial they found the therapy.
Interventions
Group Speech-Language Therapy: Communication intervention and parent education provided by a Speech Pathologist for two sessions per week for five weeks (for approximately 1 hour) to children and their caregivers in a group context. Communication intervention will be provided in the format of a structured parent-training program based on key concepts for speech and language development. Parents will be able to practise these activities with their children within the group context and brainstorm
Group Speech-Language Therapy: Communication intervention and parent education provided by a Speech Pathologist for two sessions per week for five weeks (for approximately 1 hour) to children and their caregivers in a group context. Communication intervention will be provided in the format of a structured parent-training program based on key concepts for speech and language development. Parents will be able to practise these activities with their children within the group context and brainstorm ways to implement these activities in the ward environment. To monitor adherence, case notes will be kept by the treating Speech Pathologist.
Sponsors
Queensland Health.
Study design
Allocation
Non-randomised trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Treatment
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
4 Months to 36 Months
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
Inclusion Criteria: Group Speech-Language Therapy [n=17] -Children in the General Medical Ward; aged 4-36 months; no diagnosed global developmental delay. Individual Speech-Language Therapy [n=17] - Children in the Surgical and Infectious Diseases Wards aged 4-36 months; no diagnosed global developmental delay. Due to bed configuration and the risk of infection from children on alternative wards it is not appropriate to individually allocate children to treatments groups via randomisation. Children who can mix freely on general medical wards will be assigned to group intervention.
Exclusion criteria
Children admitted for a short stay (e.g. less than 5 months, shorter than the treatment period); patients for whom English is not their primary language (e.g. assessments are only validated for children for whom English is their primary language). Children with global developmental delay, or acquired brain injury, neurological impairment, hearing impairment, visual impairment, seizures, genetic syndrome with associated cognitive impairment.
Outcome results
None listed