Document Type : Original Articles
Authors
1 Speech Language Pathologist, Abilities Rehab Center, Chennai, India
2 Department of Speech Language Pathology, Sri Ramachandra Faculty, Audiology and Speech Language Pathology (SRFASLP), Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research (DU), Chennai, India
Abstract
Background: There is a growing need for online therapy due to various factors, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, long travel distances, and the duration of speech therapy sessions. This study aimed to develop an application to assist parents in providing speech therapy for children with stuttering. This app aims to facilitate dynamic interaction between Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs) and the families of children with stuttering.
Methods: A cross-sectional study design was carried out to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of an app for parents of children with stuttering aged 3 to 12 years. The app included brief descriptions of analogies for stuttering, accompanied by video demonstrations of these analogies. Three speech and language pathologists evaluated the app's content with at least five years of experience working with children with fluency disorders. Thirteen parents of children with stuttering participated in the study. The parents and their children used the app. Descriptive statistics and percentage analysis were applied to assess background variables.
Results: The findings revealed that almost all parents found the instructions provided in the app to be easily understandable. Seventy percent of the parents rated the app as highly satisfying in its usefulness. Regarding the app's functionality, nearly 77% of parents found it highly satisfying. Additionally, approximately 85% of parents found the app very user-friendly.
Conclusion: Most parents found this prototype app easy to use, efficient in training their children, and highly functional. The app appears to impact children's speech positively and facilitate effective communication. In the future, this app has the potential to reach a large number of clients, promoting better fluency skills cost-effectively and efficiently.
Keywords
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