Addressing Parental Gatekeeping in Early-Intervention Services: Engaging all Caregivers.

The successful implementation of early interventions (EIs) within families is crucial in mitigating language and developmental delays in young children. Considering that language acquisition primarily occurs through interactions between caregivers and children, parental involvement plays a significant role in EI services. Working within families where one parent interferes with the involvement of the child's other parent or caregiver can be challenging for service providers. This article examines parental gatekeeping-a concept from the family science literature that can have a significant impact on services provided by speech language pathologists (SLPs). We outline and provide examples of family dynamics that may pose challenges to SLPs working with young children and their families as well as provide strategies for effectively navigating and working within these dynamics.

Young children's narrative retell in response to static and animated stories.

BACKGROUND: The format of narrative prompts used within language assessment has remained relatively constant; however, the use of animated video prompts deserves exploration given the increase in access to technology. AIMS: To investigate the effect of story presentation format (static picture book versus animated video) on preschool children's narrative retells. It was hypothesized that children would produce more advanced narrative language elements in response to an animated video than a book. METHODS & PROCEDURES: A total of 73 children between the ages of 3 and 5 years completed two narrative retells. One of these retells was in response to a 3-min animated video presented on a computer; the other retell was in response to static pictures presented in a book format. Children's stories were then transcribed and coded for linguistic and narrative elements. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: Paired sample t-tests revealed that children produced significantly longer stories, greater syntactic complexity and lexical variety, and more action verbs when retelling an animated story compared with a book. Furthermore, a post-hoc analysis revealed that examiners provided significantly fewer prompts when eliciting the retell with animation. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: Typically developing children demonstrated higher quantity and quality of language within a story retell in response to an animated video than after viewing images from the video presented in a static picture book. Although the extent to which these findings may be similar for children with language disorder has yet to be determined, researchers or clinicians should consider the effect of elicitation procedures on children's retells.

Survey of male college students' perceptions and knowledge of speech-language pathology.

When considering the paucity of males in the speech-language pathology field and the continued interest to increase the diversity within the profession, the current study seeks to identify variables that may deter male students from choosing communication sciences and disorders as a major. Survey responses from 290 males from two universities were analyzed. Findings indicated male undergraduate students have minimal awareness of the speech-language-pathology profession. This was seen in overall knowledge as well as the scope of the practice. Overall, despite the limited awareness and knowledge of the profession, the students' perceptions were positive towards the profession (e.g. intellectually challenging and requires independent thinking). Further reported perceptions and implications for future research are discussed.