Product and process depictions of rapport between clients and their speech-language pathologists during clinical interactions

While most clinicians and researchers in the field of speech-language pathology would agree that the positive relationships between clinicians and their clients can be central to client progress, there has been little direct attention paid to the topic. Neither textbooks nor the clinical research literature have written much on how relationships get established or negotiated in clinical interactions. Instead, their primary focus has been on communication impairments and how clinicians should go about identifying, diagnosing, and remediating those impairments. If the clinical relationship is attended to at all, it is discussed briefly under the rubric of “rapport.”