Background: Pragmatic language is often impaired in preschool-age children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and developmental language disorder (DLD), frequently affecting learning, socialization, and mental health. Early intervention with involvement from caregivers and communicative partners is essential to minimise these difficulties. However, research on parents’ and teachers’ perspectives on the perceived effectiveness of pragmatic language interventions is scarce.

Aim: This study aims to analyse parents’ and teachers’ perceptions after implementing the Pragmatic Intervention Programme (PICP) in preschool-age children with ASD and DLD.

Method: This study was incorporated into the PICP effectiveness research project and approval was granted by the Ethics Committee of the Health Sciences Research Unit: Nursing (734/12-2020). A survey was conducted using an adaptation of the Parent Satisfaction Survey and data from 30 participants (15 parents and 15 teachers) were collected immediately after the implementation of the PICP. For each child, 24 PICP-based intervention sessions were freely given biweekly, for one hour, by a speech-language pathologist (SLP) with in-depth knowledge of the programme content, implementation, and previous clinical practice providing intervention to children with pragmatic impairments. All sessions were provided face-to-face in a naturalistic context (kindergarten) and, beyond the child and the SLP, other communicative partners were also involved. The survey includes 11 statements about the intervention impact (e.g., “this is an appropriate intervention for my child’s social communication skills”) that are individually scored between 1 (totally disagree) and 7 (totally agree). Data were analysed through descriptive statistics.

Results: The average score obtained from the parents’ perspective about the intervention impact was 6.73 ± 0.39. For teachers, the average score was 6.42 ± 0.42.

Conclusions: The results indicate that parents and teachers considered this intervention appropriate and effective for improving the pragmatic skills of preschool-age children with DLD and ASD. Evidence-based improvements in multiple contexts are essential to ensure generalisation and therefore parents’ and teachers’ perspectives should be considered as a valuable outcome in future trials and clinical practice.

Implications for children and families: If you are worried about your child’s pragmatic language development, there is evidence about the effectiveness of pragmatic intervention in children with pragmatic language difficulties. Please, contact a speech-language pathologist.

Implications for practitioners: The caregivers’ satisfaction and perspective on the efficacy of the intervention are fundamental to ascertaining the generalisability of the results of an intervention. Incorporating this into your daily practice would be valuable.

Funding: This work was supported by the national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., within CINTESIS, R&D Unit (UIDB/4255/2020 and UIDP/4255/2020) and within RISE (LA/P/0053/2020), CLUL (UIDB/00214/2020), and a Ph.D. grant (2020.08569.BD).

Key words: children’s voices, families’ voices, communication, pragmatic intervention

This presentation relates to the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:

• SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being
• SDG 4: Quality Education
• SDG 17: Partnerships to Achieve the Goals