How Confident are Final-Year Speech and Language Therapy Students Regarding Provision of Intervention to Youth Offenders with Communication Disorders?

Abstract

Objective: To determine how confident final-year speech and language therapy (SLT) students feel regarding provision of intervention to youth offenders with communication disorders. This project looked specifically at confidence assessing adolescents, providing intervention to adolescents, and providing intervention to youth offenders. Method: A cohort of 23 final-year SLT students completed a questionnaire comprised of Likert and open-ended questions. Main results: Only 17% of the participants felt confident providing intervention to youth offenders with communication disorders; 70% of the participants felt confident assessing adolescents with communication disorders; while 53% felt confident providing intervention to adolescents. However, when specific areas of assessment and intervention were considered, there were gaps in confidence, including knowledge of typical adolescent communication development, provision of intervention for adolescent dysfluency and management of challenging behaviours. Conclusion: Final-year SLT students have much of the basic knowledge required to help youth offenders develop communication skills; however, most do not feel confident providing intervention to youth offenders with communication disorders. Undergraduate workshops and continuing professional development courses may facilitate transference of underlying skills to the provision of intervention to youth offenders with communication disorders.