Building Effective Partnerships With Parents to Support Language Development in Young Children

Abstract

Building effective partnership with parents of young children with language delays has strong face value and is supported by multiple areas of research; however, building and maintaining partnerships to optimize child outcomes in practice can be difficult. This article provides a guide to teachers and speech-language pathologists who work with young children with language delays for how to collaborate toward building and maintaining effective parent partnerships. Building effective partnerships starts with, first, getting to know the family using responsive interview questions and communication rooted in clinical psychology practices; second, instructing parents to implement instructional approaches at home using effective adult learning strategies; third, maintaining partnerships through effective ongoing communication; and, finally, problem-solving with motivational interviewing. Taken together, this article presents a feasible and family-focused model for increasing implementation of language strategies across settings.