What is it about?
Caregiver communication plays a central role in supporting young children's communication development. We developed and tested a practical tool that helps clinicians observe the way caregivers communicate with young children during play.
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Photo by Seljan Salimova on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Clinicians often rely on informal observations of caregiver communication. This study introduces a practical approach that could support more consistent observations and help guide individualized caregiver coaching for families of autistic and non-autistic children.
Perspectives
This project began with a simple question: if caregiver coaching is central to early intervention, why do we have so few practical ways to observe caregiver communication? I hope this work encourages future research and supports clinicians, young children, and their families.
Aishah Almathkour
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Developing a Clinically Practical Tool to Evaluate Directed Caregiver Communication in Early Intervention: A Pilot Study of the Tool's Reliability and Validity, American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, July 2026, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA),
DOI: 10.1044/2026_ajslp-25-00463.
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