'Parents Are the First Tutors of Their Child': Parents' Perception of Responsibility on Practicing Speech-Language Home Program During COVID-19 Lockdown

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.