August 2026 update: We have been working on this project for over a year now, and we have some really positive updates to share!
A quick reminder of our project:
- Phase 1: interviews with speaking autistic children, about their experiences and preferences for SLT;
- Phase 2: surveys and interviews with SLTs working with autistic children, about their current practices and approaches;
- Phase 3: interviews with non/minimally speaking autistic children, to make sure that their views are also included
We aim to talk with 12 speaking autistic children in this phase. We have been recruiting through social media, and some of our existing networks. So far, we have met with 11 children. It’s fantastic that we are so close to our target!
Next, we’ll look carefully at what the children have told us, and write a paper that shows what autistic children’s experiences of SLT are really like, and how they actually want them to be. This will help us understand how SLTs meet autistic children’s needs.
In this phase, we’re talking with SLTs who work with autistic children, to find out how they work in a neurodivergence-affirming way. We also want to know whether they’ve experienced any barriers to doing this, and if so, how they might lessen those barriers.
We are still recruiting for this part of the study! We want 40 SLTs to complete our online survey, and 12 of those to also participate in a more in-depth interview with us. At the moment, we have completed surveys from 32 SLTs, and 12 have completed an interview with us. We would still like to recruit some more survey participants.
If you’re interested, please email ndspeech-languagetherapy@manchester.ac.uk.
We have just received ethical approval for our P3 study. This will explore the views of non/minimally speaking autistic children aged between 9 years old and 15 years, 11 months old, on their communication and SLT. We hope to begin recruitment for this study in September 2026.
This is really exciting, because non/minimally speaking autistic children are often not included in research as it’s considered ‘too difficult’ to communicate with them. But we believe their opinions are just as important as anyone else’s, and we know that it is not ‘too difficult’ to communicate!
We have spent about 6 months making the resources to use with our Phase 3 participants. We really wanted to be sure we’ve made the best resources we can, to help our P3 participants engage with our questions. We made a set of images which were reviewed by our PPIE (Patient and Public Involvement & Engagement) and focus groups. These include autistic people, SLTs and researchers. We also tested materials with autistic children. All this feedback helped us to improve the materials, including a consistent set of characters. A professional illustrator produced our final images, which are now used throughout the materials.
Ultimately, we plan to make these resources available for free, so that others can use them with the children that they work with.
Lastly, a really exciting piece of news! We are planning to hold an online ‘meet the researchers’ event in October. This will allow you to find out more about our project and ask us any questions you have. There will be a few different members of our team there so please do come along and see what we all do! Keep an eye out on our Facebook page for updates about this.
0 Comments