Speech-Language Pathologists’ Self-Reported Language Input and Recommendations During Early Intervention

This study examined the extent to which early intervention (EI) speech-language pathologists (SLPs) use and recommend language input strategies for caregivers of children with language delays and the child factors associated with these decisions. Participants included 213 SLPs who completed an online survey. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests, Friedman’s analyses of variance, and Spearman correlations were used to determine the extent to which EI SLPs used and recommended language input, child factors that influenced recommendations and input, and relationships between SLPs’ self-reported strategies and recommendations to caregivers. EI SLPs reported recommending expanding on child utterances more than other strategies. EI SLPs reported using grammatical input more than telegraphic input and recommended grammatical phrases as children made gains in spoken language. Language strategies used by SLPs inconsistently aligned with their recommendations to caregivers. Results underscore the importance of evaluating recommendations to caregivers in the context of EI.