A comparison of parents' perceptions and speech/language pathologists' perceptions of selected social competency needs of speech/language impaired preschool children in Broward County, Florida

The problem investigated in this study was to determine the significance of agreement between the perceptions of parents and speech/language pathologists toward selected social competency needs of speech/language impaired children in the personal, family, and school contexts. Preschool children exhibiting speech/language impairments are more likely to demonstrate a lack of social competency development than children with normal speech and language development. As children with speech/language impairments receive intervention in the absence of parental support, the intervention results may be minimized. If perceptions of parents and speech/language pathologists differ significantly, parents may not reinforce carryover activities in the home, thereby reducing therapy gains.;The evaluation instrument utilized in this study was a 31-item survey developed by Tunstall (1993) at the College of Education, University of South Carolina. The survey was created using a 4-point Likert-type scale. Reliability was obtained by Tunstall in 1993 and revealed good internal reliabilities. In 1996, this study included the entire sample of 100 respondents to obtain a high reliability coefficient alpha of.9189.;The sample included 70 parents of preschool speech/language impaired students and 30 speech/language pathologists of the Broward County Public School System in Florida, during the fall of 1996. Surveys were distributed to parents of children exhibiting a speech/language impairment, who attended a preschool speech/language, developmental, and hearing screening provided by the Broward County Public Schools. During an annual Speech/Language Policies and Procedures meeting in August of 1996, surveys were distributed to 30 speech/language pathologists providing treatment for preschool children.;Three hypotheses were developed to determine if there was a significant difference in the perceptions of the two groups surveyed. Analyses of variance were utilized to test the statistical significance of the group (parents and speech/language pathologists) differences for each factor (personal, family, and school). Descriptive statistics were included to describe the demographic characteristics of the respondents from the survey instrument. A Boneferonni type adjustment was made to the nominal alpha of.05, such that all the hypotheses were tested at the.017 level. Based on the findings of this study, there was a significant difference between the perceptions of the parents and speech/language pathologists toward selected social competency needs of preschool children with speech/language impairments within the family context, F(1,98) = 7.44, p =.0078. The results revealed the two groups were not in agreement as to the importance of family factors and the contributions of those factors to a preschool child's social competency. The mean score of the parents' responses was significantly higher than that of the speech/language pathologists.