Trauma-Informed Care in Speech and Language Pathology Sessions for Children Who Experienced Maltreatment

Child maltreatment has profound effects on children’s development, including their communication and language abilities. Consequently, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) frequently work with children who have experienced maltreatment. Yet, there is limited research on trauma-informed care (TIC) within the field of speech-language pathology (SLP). This descriptive exploratory study aims to identify trauma displays of children and trauma-informed reactions of SLPs during sessions with children who experienced severe maltreatment. Using a content analysis approach and a trauma-informed lens, we analyzed clinical documents of 19 children aged 3.5 to 12 years. These children were removed from their homes to an emergency center because of an immediate physical or mental risk. They received SLP sessions at a unique multidisciplinary clinic dedicated to serving children who have experienced maltreatment. Our findings highlighted several trauma displays by the children during the SLP sessions, including revealing traumatic content through sharing daily-life experiences, discontinuities in attention, memory and time sequencing, unusual and incongruent responses, children’s need to gain control, and the display of somatic complaints. In response, the speech-language pathologist utilized a range of trauma-informed reactions and approaches, such as focusing on building relationships, creating a predictable and organized environment, assisting with regulation, shifting between the child and speech-language pathologist leading the session, and modeling. The current study underscores the importance of integrating trauma-informed principles into SLP practices and calls for further research, training, and policy development to enhance TIC implementation in diverse settings.