| Abstract [eng] |
The theoretical part of the research analyses the main focuses concerning parents' satisfaction with the services provided by speech therapists and support to their children as well as to the families in pre-school in Lithuania as well as in other European countries. The aim of the research is to assess the parents’ raising up pre-school children, who need speech therapy, satisfaction with speech therapy support. There were applied the theoretical analysis of literature and documents, secondary analysis of documents as well as empirical (questionnaire and interview), and statistical methods. Methods of descriptive statistics (absolute and relative frequencies) were applied for statistical analysis. The sample of research (questionnaire survey) consists of 198 parents with pre-school children, who receive speech therapy at pre-school, as well as 4 respondents who took part in an interview in order to ascertain the views and attitudes towards the given support and its contents. The main conclusions of the empirical part of the research: 1. The scientific literature and analysis of documents show that Lithuania, focusing on the European Union's education policy, shifts from a narrow orientation to the child‘s and the support to him/her, based on the traditional institutional assistance of a speech therapist to a child in educational institution, to a systemic educational model focused not only on a child but also on a families, involved into the child's education. 2. The analysis of the research results suggests that most of participated parents appreciate the speech therapy support to their child. Especially well regarded is speech therapy support for children in means of communication with a child and used forms and methods of the assistance. Parents involved in the research welcomed positively the provided information for them about the child's speech and language development and education opportunities as well as advices of speech therapist which makes the child feel safe, offers new ideas for child's education. 3. The results of the survey suggest that parental satisfaction with the support of speech therapist determine successful parents-professionals relationships, when it is discussed and agreed on the possible solutions. According to the opinion of parents who participated in the survey, although experts tend to communicate with parents with empathy, the cooperation is most often confined with advices how education child’s speech at home. 4. The study showed that parents assess the support of speech therapy as an appropriate model for the child's speech and language development as well as other development areas. According to the respondents, professionals respect their family values and lifestyle, but they believe there should be a greater involvement of the parents into child's speech and language development activities as well as into the processes of development of speech and language education programmes. 5. The results showed that professionals' attitudes towards the cooperation based on their professional experience are positive, but it is still emphasized the lack of parental motivation to collaborate. Speech therapists, depending on parents' expectations, reconcile the parent and child‘s satisfaction with the educational process and speech therapy effectiveness. Most of speech therapists are satisfied with their work when a child succeeds in overcoming language and communication disorders, and develop positive relationships with parents and children, i.e. when it is sought the harmony between satisfaction with teaching and learning process and the efficiency of speech therapy. |
