Parent perspectives of CAS (Highman et al., 2025)

<p dir="ltr"><b>Purpose: </b>This qualitative study explored the perspectives of parents of young children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) in terms of (a) long-term desired outcomes for their child and (b) experiences of early intervention (EI). Although parent and client perspectives are recognized as a key component of evidence-based practice (EBP), there is currently sparse information about parent experiences to direct speech-language pathologists’ clinical practice.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Method:</b> The parents of 14 children with a confirmed CAS diagnosis participated in this study. Participants were from Australia and the United States. Online semistructured interviews were used to explore parents’ desired long-term aspirations for their child as well as their experience of EI. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyze the data.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Results:</b> Three themes described the long-term desired outcomes, with participants aspiring for their child to communicate effectively, participate in everyday life, and experience feelings of well-being. There were four main themes related to parents’ experiences of EI with their child with CAS: (1) finding and maintaining access to EI services is time consuming and complex; (2) quality CAS services are about therapist skills, frequency, and do-ability; (3) the wider context: EI is not just about what is happening for the child and family in speech-language pathology; and (4) children improve, but at what cost?</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Conclusions:</b> Parents have clear long-term aspirations for their child to be able to communicate effectively and to participate in and have a good quality of life, despite acknowledging the long-term nature of CAS. Experiences of EI indicate complexities in receiving appropriate intervention and the impact on the child and family as a whole. Clinicians are encouraged to consider these findings in implementing EBP.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Supplemental Material S1.</b> A summary of findings in plain language.</p><p dir="ltr">Highman, C., Wylie, K., Overby, M., Leitão, S., Thilakaratne, R., & McCabe, P. (2025). "I just want him to be understood": Parent perspectives of the long‐term desired outcomes and experiences of early intervention for children with childhood apraxia of speech. <i>American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology,</i><i> </i><i>34</i>(6), 3263–3278. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1044/2025_AJSLP‐25‐00211" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.1044/2025_AJSLP‐25‐00211</a></p>