1. Affiliation: Sheffield Children’s NHS FT
Isabel O’Leary
Affiliation: Sheffield Children’s NHS FT
Lay summary In assessing a child’s communication abilities, as much background information as possible is helpful in decision making. Parents/carers are usually the best people to give this information so it is important for them to be present at the assessment appointment. However many SLTs in this city who offer school-based assessment appointments to primary school aged children say that parents often do not come to the appointment. This project aimed to investigate a) the proportion of parents who do attend appointments and b) the factors that might influence parental attendance.
Question/Rationale
What influences parental attendance at their child’s school-based SLT initial assessment appointment?
What did you do?
3 phases of data collection.
Phase 1. Quantitative.
School-based SLT’s collected
data on parental attendance
and possibly influential
factors at assessment
appointments over one half
term
Phase 3. Qualitative
Semi-structured interviews with 4 SENCos asking about context of school and what they think influences parent attendance.
Phase 2. Qualitative.
2 focus groups with
school-based SLTs
asking what they think
influences Parental
Attendance.
What did you find out
34% of appointments did have parent attending.
Possibly influential factors identified related to age of child, parental confidence and concern, reason for referral, level of deprivation, wording and timing of appointment letters.
Implications:
Research implications: Investigate parental expectations of SLT, and referral process from schools.
Clinical implications: Consider improvements to wording and timing of appointment letters, school staff understanding of need for parental attendance and parental familiarity with SLT
Next steps:
Feedback to SLTs working in schools. Workshops to consider why and how to engage parents.
Audit attendance again 2 years on.