Exploring the valued outcomes of school-based speech-language therapy services: a sequential iterative design.

Area of Science:

• Speech-language pathology
• Educational psychology
• Healthcare outcomes research

Background:

• High-quality, family-centered care requires achieving outcomes valued by community members.
• Current research on school-based speech-language services narrowly defines outcomes, not aligning with family, teacher, and child priorities.
• The most important outcomes for school-based speech-language services remain under-investigated.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address the gap in understanding valued outcomes for school-based speech-language services.
• To identify and prioritize outcomes that community members consider most relevant for evaluating and improving these services.

Main Methods:

• A sequential, iterative mixed-method study involving interviews with 14 family members, educators, and speech-language therapists.
• Summative content analysis and structural topic modeling were used to analyze qualitative data.
• Comparison of perspectives across stakeholder groups through topic proportions and qualitative analysis.

Main Results:

• Six key outcome topics emerged: meeting needs, teamwork, capacity building, supporting individual needs, coordinating care, and supporting educational goals.
• Families prioritized meeting needs and coordinating care; educators focused on individual student needs.
• Speech-language therapists emphasized capacity building and supporting educational goals; all agreed current measures are inadequate.

Conclusions:

• Valued outcomes encompass individual, interpersonal, and systems-level impacts, with differing priorities among stakeholders.
• There is a need to build consensus on the most important outcomes for school-based speech-language services.
• Prioritization of outcomes is crucial for the development of effective measurement tools.