ating child receiving the E-PLAYS intervention will be a child with social communication impairments. For each participating child, there will be an associated teacher and parent who will complete questionnaires, a speech and language therapist and teaching assistant who will deliver the intervention and a typically developing child from the same class who will partner the child to play the E-PLAYS game. For ease of reference, these will be called ‘participant groups’; each participant group comprises one child with communication impairment, plus one parent, one teacher, one SLT, one teaching assistant and one typically developing partner child. The randomisation will occur at the level of the SLT because once an SLT has become familiar with E-PLAYS, it is possible that their approach to children with social communication difficulties may be influenced. Therefore, SLTs will receive immediate training if randomised to the intervention group and if allocated to the control group, will receive training after all study measures have been completed.
Participating children in the intervention arm will receive the E-PLAYS intervention while participating children in the control arm will receive treatment as usual. The trial will be pragmatic in nature with the interventions being delivered in the way that they would be delivered within the NHS. The effectiveness of E-PLAYS will not be addressed in this feasibility trial but left to a subsequent full-scale RCT, with the key outcomes of the present study relating to the feasibility of conducting such an RCT. Assessment of these feasibility outcomes will inform whether a full-scale trial is viable and inform its design and implementation.
We will recruit SLTs and suitable children on their caseloads from within North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT) Speech and Language Services.
Participants will comprise the following in a ‘participant group’ comprising one child with social communication impairment (SCI) with associated relevant others:
SLTs from NELFT
Participating children (ages 4–7 years old) with SCI as selected by SLTs ‘focal children’
Teaching assistants trained to use E-PLAYS by participating SLTs
Teachers who will complete pre-, post- and follow-up test measures relating to participating children
‘Partner’ children; classmates for the focal children for the E-PLAYS intervention who will play the dyadic collaborative computer games that comprise E-PLAYS with them.
Parents of the focal children who will complete post-test measures for health economics.
Selection, recruitment and consenting of participants
The procedure for distribution of information sheets and consent forms for the different kinds of participants is described below. In all cases, potential participants will be given at least 48 h in which to make a decision.
SLTs from NELFT
The research team will approach suitably employed paediatric SLTs, that is SLTs working with children aged 4- to 7-years-old attending mainstream (not special) schools. The SLTs will be invited to a presentation by the team, will have the opportunity to ask questions about the study and will be given information sheets and consent forms to take away to read. Consent forms can be returned by post, electronically or by hand to the research team. SLTs not responding within a week will be reminded and invited again by email once more only.
Participating children with social communication impairments (SCI) ‘focal children’.
SLTs will review their caseloads and identify suitable children using the Social Communication Behaviour Checklist devised by Adams et al. . The checklist requires the SLT to decide on the applicability of each of the following five statements to a given child:
The child has trouble understanding and interpreting the social context and friendship, e.g. social roles, emotions
The child has trouble understanding and/or using non-verbal aspects of communication, e.g. facial expression, intonation
The child has trouble with aspects of conversation, e.g. beginning and ending, taking turns, giving relevant and sufficie