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Involving Individuals with Developmental Language Disorder and Their Parents/Carers in Research Priority Setting
Published on: June 6, 2020
Cost-effectiveness analysis of current practice and parent intervention for children under 3 years presenting with
Deborah Gibbard1, Louisa Coglan, John MacDonald
1Speech and Language Therapy Department, Battenburg Avenue Clinic, Portsmouth, UK. deborah.gibbard@ports.nhs.uk
Insights
Parent-based intervention (PBI) significantly improved language gains in preschool children with expressive language delay compared to standard care. This approach is cost-effective for healthcare providers, offering increased value.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Speech-Language Pathology
- Child Development
- Healthcare Economics
Background:
- Children's expressive language development can be enhanced by both parents and professionals.
- Various intervention delivery models exist, but comparative cost-effectiveness analyses are lacking.
- Current practice often involves parents following professional advice on a review basis.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare parent-based intervention (PBI) with current healthcare practice for preschool children with expressive language delay.
- To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of PBI from a healthcare provider's perspective.
Main Methods:
- A comparative study involving two groups of preschool children with expressive language delay.
- One group (n=10) received standard individual general care.
- The comparison group (n=12) received parent-based intervention (PBI).
Main Results:
- Children receiving PBI demonstrated significantly greater language gains over a 6-month period compared to the standard care group.
- A cost-effectiveness analysis indicated that while PBI incurred some additional costs, there was no significant increase in cost per outcome gain.
- PBI offers a valuable approach with comparable cost-effectiveness to general care.
Conclusions:
- Parent-based intervention is an effective strategy for improving expressive language in preschool children.
- Implementation strategies for PBI can be optimized to potentially reduce costs for healthcare providers.
- PBI presents a valuable and cost-effective approach to addressing expressive language delay.
Background:
Parents and professionals can both play a role in improving children's expressive language development and a number of alternative models of delivery exist that involve different levels of input by these two groups. However, these alternative treatments have not been subject to rigorous comparative analysis in terms of both cost and clinical effectiveness.
Aims:
To compare, from the viewpoint of the healthcare provider, parent-based intervention (PBI) for preschool children presenting with expressive language delay with current practice observed in an actual healthcare setting where parents of the child follow a professional's advice on a review basis.
Methods & Procedures:
Two groups of children were compared on a variety of expressive and receptive language assessment measures. One group (n=10) received standard individual general care. The comparison group (n=12) received PBI.
Outcomes & Results:
After the 6-month study, the results indicated that children who received PBI made significantly greater language gains that children who received current practice. In addition, a cost-effective analysis was conducted. This showed that although the language gains delivered by PBI did incur some additional costs for the healthcare provider, there was no significant increase in cost per outcome gain over general care.
Conclusions:
Options in the implementation of PBI are discussed that could potentially save costs for the healthcare providers and increase the value of a PBI-based approach.
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