"Parents are the first tutors of their child”: Parents' perception of responsibility on practicing speech-language home program during COVID-19 lockdown

Wong, Yee Yan, Yap, Joo Siew, Chu, Shin Ying, Smith, Guiditta, Woi, Pui Juan, Chai, Siaw Chui, Ng, Lay Shi, Lin, Ling-Yi and Garraffa, Maria (2025) "Parents are the first tutors of their child”: Parents' perception of responsibility on practicing speech-language home program during COVID-19 lockdown. Child Care, Health & Development, 51 (1).

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Abstract

Background and Objectives: Some families faced difficulties accessing speech therapy in some areas of Malaysia and/or during the COVID-19 lockdown. Therefore, parent-mediated intervention could be one of the ways to solve this issue, as it has been proven to effectively improve communication skills among children with communication disorders. Hence, a Mandarin parental guidebook comprising a series of language stimulation activities was developed to explore the perception of parents of children with communication disorders, ranging from 3 to 6 years old, regarding the feasibility of (1) conducting speech–language home programs and (2) using a home-based parental guidebook as a tool to deliver a speech–language home program. Design, Setting and Participants: Semistructured interviews were conducted with nine Malaysian parents of child (ren) with communication disorders, who fulfilled the inclusionary criteria. Parents had attempted the speech–language home program by using the guidebook prior to the interview. The participants were subjected to 45-min to 1-h interviews. The interviews were audio- or video-recorded for verbatim transcription. Thematic analysis was used for data interpretation. Results: Four main themes were identified: (1) ‘Golden Period’: a guidebook to deliver speech–language home program, (2) perception of the speech–language home program among parents of children with communication disorders, (3) challenges faced by parents when practicing speech–language home program and (4) suggestions for improvements: parent's needs. The themes informed the perspective of parents towards the user experience of the parental guidebook, the feasibility of the speech–language home program and their recommendations. Overall, participants conveyed positive responses on the parental guidebook. Conclusions: Malaysian parents face difficulties in accessing speech therapy because of limited numbers of SLTs, geographical barriers, financial constraints, availability of facilities and so forth. Findings could assist SLTs in adopting a family-centred approach in their service delivery, thus increasing the cost-effectiveness of their service delivery.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Funding information: The study was partially supported by the British Council (NN-2022-013).
Uncontrolled Keywords:	communication disorders,early intervention,home program,parental guidebook,pediatrics, perinatology, and child health,developmental and educational psychology,public health, environmental and occupational health ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2700/2735
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > School of Health Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Centres > Lifespan Health
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	10 Jan 2025 01:00
Last Modified:	06 Feb 2025 12:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/98134
DOI:	10.1111/cch.70038

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