Measuring clinician-client relationships in speech-language treatment

What is it about?

Effective treatment services in speech-language pathology may depend, at least in part, on the relationship between the speech-language pathologist and the treatment client. We know from counseling psychology that clinician-client relationships have a significant impact on treatment outcomes, and counseling psychology has established scales for measuring these relationships. This study adapted an existing clinician-client relationship scale from psychology to speech-language pathology and tested it in a group of school-age children receiving speech-language treatment.

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Why is it important?

Establishing valid and reliable scales to measure clinician-client relationships will have both clinical and research applications. Clinicians can use a relationship scale to monitor their relationships with clients and families, adjusting them as needed. Researchers can use clinician-client relationship scales to control for relationship effects when testing a new treatment, or to study how to make relationships more effective.