People with developmental disabilities have difficulty in communication as well as cognition and adjustment. Moreover such difficulties last long into adulthood. Accordingly they need continuous speech and language treatment in order to improve their communication and quality of life. However, there is not enough research on the treatment of middle- and high-school students and adults with developmental disabilities in Korea. Therefore the primary research questions of the current study were to explore how speech-language pathologists(SLPs) in Korea perceive the treatment of middle- and high-school students and adults with developmental disabilities in order to provide basic data for efficient intervention of middle- and high-school students and adults with developmental disabilities.
The current study surveyed 107 SLPs in Korea. The survey items included past and current experiences of treatment of middle- and high-school students and adults with developmental disabilities, knowledge and confidence level on the clinical management, and SLPs perception and its inflential factors on the treatment of middle- and high-school students and adults with developmental disabilities.
The results showed that almost 86% of the participants(92/107) were providing or had previously provided treatment for middle- and high-school students and adults with developmental disabilities. However they were providing or had provided treatment for more numbers of middle- and high-school students than adults.
The SLPs recognized the need for treatment, knowledge and confidence level higher for middle- and high-school students than adults with developmental disabilities. In addition the SLPs indicated that the treatment should be continuous for the middle- and high-school students and adults with developmental disabilities. Moreover the SLPs indicated that the middle- and high-school students and adults with developmental disabilities would not receive the treatment due to financial difficulties. In addition they indicated lack of clinical support would make the treatment difficult. Such perception would be different according to clinical experiences of the SLPs; however such differences were limited.
The current study emphasized the importance of providing social security system for middle- and high-school students and adults including providing treatment vouchers for adults. In addition re-education of the SLPs is needed especially for the adults with developmental disabilities in order to help them to provide effective service for people with develpmental disabilities.