EVALUATING GRADUATE STUDENT WRITING: DO STUDENTS WRITE FROM A STRENGTHS PERSPECTIVE?

Abstract

There is growing evidence supporting the use of strengths based approaches to serving families. Professionals can positively impact family outcomes by using strengths based language when interacting with families. The purpose of this study was to examine the nature with which graduate student clinicians write from a strengths perspective. Specifically, we explored whether first year graduate student clinicians in speech language pathology use strengths based/ability focused language when documenting observations of children's' communication and behavior during play. We created videos of typically developing children in natural environments and gathered narrative writing samples broken down by phrase (N = 693 phrases) from graduate student clinicians. Students (N =29) participated in each of two conditions (A- general prompt; B- clinic prompt). Using a coding system developed by the research team, we analyzed the nature with which the student clinicians included strengths based language in their written documentation. Our findings indicated that the student clinicians in the current study generally used more neutral, ability focused language (than deficit based language) in their writing. However, when the student clinicians were led to believe the child in the video was coming to the clinic for an evaluation, they used less strengths based language. Findings from this study provide valuable information about how first year graduate students write when documenting observations of child behavior and communication and may serve as a guidepost for how we design academic training programs with respect to clinical documentation. Additionally, these findings emphasize the importance of ensuring that clinical training mentors use strengths based practices across training sites.