Developing guidelines to support good practice in children's speech disorders : the child speech disorder research network

Cleland, Joanne (2017) Developing guidelines to support good practice in children's speech disorders : the child speech disorder research network. In: Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists Conference 2017, 2017-09-27 - 2017-09-28.



Phonetic transcription and phonological analysis skills are a core aspect of speech and language therapy training and practice (HCPC, 2013, p13). Yet increasingly, large caseloads and prescribed care pathways are leaving little time for the collection, transcription and analysis of speech samples while current NHS IT and health record systems are making it difficult to store audio or video recordings and phonetic transcriptions. This is despite the fact that the transcription and analysis of speech samples informs the choice of appropriate intervention and target selection as well as providing baseline and outcome data (McLeod and Baker, 2014; Howard and Heselwood, 2002). The Child Speech Disorder Research Network (CSDRN) is a group of 15 specialist research and clinical speech and language therapists in child speech disorder. Their remit is to raise and maintain the profile of child speech disorder and promote implementation of evidence based practice through driving the research agenda and providing expert research and clinical knowledge. The CSDRN also seeks to support the work of clinical speech and language therapists through the RCSLT Child Speech CENs and knowledge mobilisation and, as part of this work, they have developed two sets of guidelines for use in clinical practice and research. The first set was launched in 2013 and provides advice on the collection of speech samples and their transcription ( ). These were recently updated and will be supplemented in 2017 by the second set of guidelines on the analysis of speech samples for the purposes of determining strategies for intervention and measuring outcomes. The guidelines recognise the difficulties that clinicians face with regards to justifying the time required to transcribe and then analyse speech samples. It is clear that not all children will require a full transcription or analysis and the flowchart in the first set of transcription guidelines makes provision for those children whose speech presentation can be quickly and primarily analysed by ear. However, clear guidance is provided for those children who require a more detailed approach, with information regarding when collection of a speech sample is needed, what sort of sample would be most suitable, what should be transcribed and how the sample might be analysed. The two sets of guidelines provide a justification for why a detailed approach to assessment and analysis may be needed. They can be used by both individual clinicians and service managers in discussions with commissioners and other relevant parties when describing the role of speech and language therapists and the levels of resource needed. The poster will describe the process of developing the guidelines and provide outline information of their contents and details of how they can be accessed electronically. Some paper copies will also be available for attendees.