| Sumario: | Understanding initial parent responses to early stuttering provides a foundation to build a strong therapeutic alliance, and promotes shared decision-making during intervention, allowing for tailored education and support. In a digital age where health-related decision-making often begins with an internet search, it is important to understand how it might influence their initial responses. Therefore, this study explored how access to internet-based information may influence parent responses to childhood stuttering onset. This helps clinicians to understand knowledge and beliefs parents may bring to initial clinical consultations. Participants were parents of 2–4-year-olds who did not stutter, and who had no prior experience of stuttering. They were given information about early stuttering and shown five video clips depicting varying degrees of stuttering severity in preschool-age children. They were asked to reflect on five actions they would take if their child began to stutter. These actions were guided by either internet searches or relied on intuition alone. A reflexive thematic analysis was used to examine and interpret patterns in these parent responses. Compared to parents in the spontaneous response group, internet-informed parents more frequently described self-modification, with adjustments to their own speech and a "wait-and-see" approach. In contrast, spontaneous parent responses more often described speech-focused strategies directed at the child. Results provide insights that inform speech-language pathology practices by helping clinicians (a) align treatment planning with parent perspectives, (b) correct misinformation, and (c) foster stronger therapeutic alliances from the outset. • Parents reported that they would implement behavioral, environmental, and observational strategies if their child began stuttering. • Internet-informed parents more frequently described adjustments to their own behaviour. • Spontaneous parent responses more often described speech-focused strategies directed at the child. • During internet searching, parents were directed to reputable but general health sites. • Few parents accessed specialist stuttering resources online, or professional speech-language pathology organizations.
|
|---|