Thanks to Nicole Dredge for sending us this great blog post.
As a final year SLT student at the University of Essex, I chose to focus on intervention intensity for my research proposal. There was an exciting amount of research on intervention intensity being published and the current status of the NHS and education funding emphasise the importance of optimal intensity within the political and economic zeitgeist.
I cannot explain how delighted I was to find out that #ResNetSLT were holding a journal club on this very subject in October 2018. Having barely used Twitter previously, let alone participate in an online journal club, I cautiously read the advice on #ResNetSLT about getting involved and was extremely pleased to see that “lurkers” such as myself were welcome.
One aspect of the Tweetchat which sparked particular interest with me, was intervention dose. As a student SLT I considered frequency, duration and total intervention duration as important variables when planning treatment. I was surprised how rarely I had considered, or come across in the literature, evidence around dose.
Several comments within the twitter feed echoed my own concerns around how to increase dose without turning therapy into a ‘drill’. However, on later reflection I decided that trying to increase dose should not necessarily be my priority, but recording and measuring dose within my own practice, so that we can begin to learn and understand the impact this has on therapeutic outcome should be.
Later contributions to the Twitter chat reminded me that even this is not as easy as it initially sounds. When it comes to production, then of course monitoring dose is easy, but calculating dose within receptive language and conceptual activities appear more problematic. Another important point noted within the Tweetchat was that teasing apart all the ‘active ingredients’ within a therapy session is not yet possible and there are far more factors at play then intensity alone.
Participating in the Tweet Chat certainly didn’t answer all my questions, in fact I probably have more now than before. But hearing from prominent and respected researchers as well as experienced practising SLTs – sharing their views, knowledge and experience in using the best evidence available whilst we continue to progress our understanding further and deeper was both encouraging and inspirational.