Investigating Variability and Malleability of Speech-Language Pathologists' Responsive Talk With Children: An Early-Efficacy Trial

Purpose: The purposes of this early-stage efficacy study were to examine speech-language pathologists' (SLPs') use of responsive talk with children and to determine the extent to which responsive talk can be modified through brief clinician education or an in situ, tablet-based feedback system, GENIE, that provided real-time prompts to use responsive talk. Method: Eleven SLPs (certified clinicians and graduate students) and 11 typically developing preschool-aged children participated in a quasi-experimental study. SLPs were paired with a randomly assigned child to complete two structured intervention sessions to assess responsive talk. In the first session, SLPs used their business-as-usual practices, whereas in the second session, SLPs were randomly assigned to receive clinician education or the in situ GENIE prompts, representing a planned variation in instructing SLPs to use responsive talk during intervention. SLP responsive talk was coded from video-recorded interactions to establish the frequency of use. Results: SLPs demonstrated substantial variability in the baseline use of responsive talk. Responsive talk increased substantially from baseline for those receiving clinician education or the in situ GENIE prompts: Increases in responsive talk for the clinician education group represented a very large-sized effect ( d = 2.1), whereas increases for the GENIE group represented a moderately sized effect ( d = 0.6). Conclusions: The primary conclusion to be drawn from this study is that SLPs' use of responsive talk during intervention is both variable and malleable . Findings suggest that brief clinician education and in situ technological supports are promising strategies for increasing SLPs' use of responsive talk, and directions for future research are discussed.