Summary

Clinicians and families are always interested in knowing whether speech-language therapy makes a difference in their child’s functioning. To evaluate communication changes over time, specific measures are needed. To address this need, Nancy Thomas Stonell, Peter Rosenbaum, Bruce Oddson, Bernadette Robertson and Joan Walker developed the Focus on the Outcomes of Communication Under Six (FOCUS©).

FOCUS© is a clinical tool designed to evaluate changes in communicative participation in preschool children.

The FOCUS is a valid, reliable, responsive treatment outcome measure that captures ‘real world’ changes following speech-language treatment. It links speech-language treatment to children’s abilities to communicate and participate in the world. There are two versions of the measure: FOCUS is a 50 item measure and FOCUS-34 has 34 items. Each version has both a parent and clinician form.

FOCUS-34 was developed in response to clinician and parent’s requests to the possibility of increasing the clinical efficiency of the FOCUS by reducing the total number of items while retaining its validity as a change detecting measure. The FOCUS-34 preserves the clinical integrity, internal consistency, reliability, and validity of the full FOCUS.