Engaging stakeholders to improve social validity: intervention priorities for students with complex communication needs

Many factors impact intervention implementation in everyday practice, including the social validity of these interventions. As a way of addressing social validity, this study aimed to understand the perspectives of multiple stakeholders of school-aged children and adolescents who use aided and unaided augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) on their key intervention priorities for these children. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 parents and professionals, which included special education teachers, paraprofessionals, and speech-language pathologists (SLPs). Qualitative content analysis focused on (a) identifying a framework of intervention priorities for children with complex communication needs and (b) understanding stakeholders' underlying values and attitudes that influenced perceptions about these priorities. Participants shared many intervention priorities and several core values. These intervention priorities included approaches focused on improving children's intrinsic abilities (i.e., skills-focused) and on improving children's extrinsic supports and opportunities (i.e., environment-focused). However, participants often portrayed diverging attitudes about different aspects of intervention, particularly self-efficacy (e.g., persistence in the face of challenges; confidence about inclusive education) and perceptions of students (e.g., keeping high expectations). These findings have important implications for practice and future research related to how attention to social validity can help bridge the research-to-practice gap.