Patient-oriented research (POR) involves the people most affected by healthcare decisions (Aubin et al., 2019). Children’s right to expression is named in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations, 1989). However, significant research gaps remain related to exploring the perspectives of children with communication difficulties as they are at particular risk of not being heard (Gallagher et al., 2018). The implementation of POR in speech and language therapy (SLT) is in its infancy (Forsgren et al., 2021). Using innovative and pragmatic approaches in the form of drawings and self-report measures, existing data from sixteen preschool and school-aged children who stutter (CWS) collected by the Discipline of SLT at the University of Galway will be analysed using mixed methods to address the following research questions:
Are drawings a suitable method for understanding the perspectives of CWS?
What do CWS communicate about talking and listening through drawing?
The aims of the study are to complete data analysis and to produce a journal article for submission to an international peer reviewed journal such as the Journal of Fluency Disorders.
Objectives for the study include:
To complete scoring of the children’s drawings across three dimensions:
1) developmental analysis (de Lemos & Doig, 1999 Who Am I?)
2) psychological analysis (Holliday’s (2008) adaptation of Fury’s Relationship Analysis (1996)
3) focal point analysis (Holliday et al. 2009)
To complete thematic analysis of the children’s talk about their drawings (Braun & Clark, 2022)
To prepare an article for submission to an international, peer-reviewed journal
The hypothesis is that drawing is a suitable method for understanding the perspectives of CWS and that they communicate a wide range of attitudes about their talking.
This research project would fill a POR gap to establish the perspectives of CWS and contribute to holistic SLT assessment and intervention.