Each Child Matters: Contributing Factors to Speech-Language Pathologists' Perceptions of Stuttering Therapy.

purposeSpeech-language pathologists (SLPs) often report feeling less confident treating children who stutter. Yet, prior research has focused on SLPs' perceptions of groups, rather than an individual child who stutters. The aim of this study was to assess SLPs' perceptions of the therapy they provide to an

methodA total of 115 SLPs rated their general experience, knowledge, and confidence related to stuttering treatment and rated how well they perceived therapy to be going for an individual child who stutters. SLPs substantiated their perceptions of therapy through an open-ended prompt. Ordinal logistic regression models incorporated SLPs' self-ratings as predictors of their ratings of an individual child's therapy. Open-ended responses were analyzed thematically to identify novel factors underlying SLP opinions of a child's therapy.

resultsMost SLPs reported therapy to be going

conclusionsSLPs tended to view stuttering therapy more positively when reflecting on an individual child, compared to prior studies asking them to reflect on stuttering in general or on groups of individuals who stutter. SLPs also framed a child's stuttering therapy holistically, emphasizing not only speech components but also the child's psychosocial experience, relationships, and personal attributes as factors underlying their perceptions of therapy.