Background: It is important to actively engage children in matters that concern them, according to Articles 12 and 13 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The inclusion of children’s voices requires “space, voice, audience, and influence” (Lundy, 2007, p. 927) for enacting children’s communication rights. In the Lundy model, space and voice provide the opportunity for children to express a view, while audience and influence enable children’s views to be given due weight. Listening to young children with unintelligible speech due to childhood apraxia of speech requires expertise from communication professionals (speech-language pathologists) in collaboration with children and families to enact children’s communication rights.

Aims: To give children with childhood apraxia of speech the space, voice, audience, and influence to provide their perspectives about participating in a motor speech intervention research project.

Method: Participants were the first 25 children with childhood apraxia of speech in a research study. The children were undertaking Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing (DTTC), an evidence-based motor speech intervention in Australia and the United States. The children were invited to participate in a sub-study to share their views of the intervention using a range of child-friendly methods. The children consented to (a) create a drawing of their experience of speech practice and answer questions about their drawing, and (b) talk about their experiences of speech practice during a 20-minute online zoom interview with a parent/caregiver and a speech-language pathologist. The research was undertaken with ethical approval from the collaborating university, parent consent, and child assent.

Results: Children’s reported feelings fall along a continuum with many positive comments about participation in DTTC intervention. Children reported the types of activities they participate in during intervention, details of the types of rewards for speech practice attempts, fun activities that are used during breaks, as well as features of the therapy setting that were memorable to them.

Conclusions: The children were provided the space (opportunity) to share their insights about talking by submitting a drawing and explanation. They were given a voice by being facilitated to express their views “regardless of frontiers … in the form of art, or through any other media of the child’s choice” (Article 13, United Nations, 1989). At the completion of the project, the children will be given an audience to share their views to influence how children receive this motor speech intervention in the future.

Implications for children and families: It is important that all children have a say about what happens in their lives. We are interested to learn from children about what it is like to do speech therapy.

Implications for practitioners: All children have the right to communicate about all aspects of their lives – and this paper provides insights into how this may be undertaken within clinical contexts.

Key words: children’s voices, communication, community services, interdisciplinary, innovation, international communities, vulnerable communities

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

• SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being
• SDG 4: Quality Education
• SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities
• SDG 17: Partnerships to Achieve the Goals