The parental experience of receiving the diagnosis of Developmental Language Disorder

Researchers

  • Hannah Harvey
  • Beth Madigan
  • Claire Ewen
  • Anna Woodward
  • Genna White
  • Loren Crisp
  • Kate Hodkinson

Research Aims

  • To explore the experiences of parents/caregivers about the receipt of a DLD diagnosis for their child.
  • To work with parents as a group to identify priorities in the diagnostic experience. 

Speech and language therapists (SLTs) support children with communication difficulties such as developmental language disorder (DLD). Previous qualitative work has indicated that some SLTs are hesitant to use formal terminology when sharing diagnostic information with families. There is limited evidence to indicate parental preferences, but not having a recognisable diagnosis may impact their own information seeking efforts and access to resources about DLD. Using experience-based co-design (EBCD) methodology, semi-structured remote video interviews with parents of children with DLD will explore what is important to them at the time of diagnosis. Thematic analysis will be applied to the data to identify key experiences, which will be edited into one film. The films will be presented to parents together in a workshop, and the group will select 5-10 priorities to take forward to inform future co-design research. Funder: Birmingham City University

  Illustration by Katie Draws