Teletherapy
Teletherapy has received a wider mainstream introduction over the last few years. During the pandemic, teletherapy and remote services gained a great deal of attention as businesses and schools closed and work and education moved online. Now, two years into the pandemic, many people have experienced teletherapy and remote services for themselves. These experiences led to strong opinions regarding virtual services. Those opinions might be good or bad, but usually not indifferent! Which side are you on? Let’s look more into what teletherapy entails.
During the pandemic, most public schools rushed to remote learning, including here in Illinois where in-person services were deemed unsafe by our Governor. Services offered through public schools, including Speech and Language therapy, moved online along with all other teaching. At this time, many teachers and therapists did not know how to interact in a virtual educational environment. In addition, some schools were worried about providing virtual services due to unvoiced legal fears. This resulted in classes and therapy services that were less than acceptable. Countless families and students became frustrated with their school’s use of remote teaching and therapy as well as the class content being taught. Many families chose to pull their child from the schools and homeschool them instead. Whatever option you took, odds are, you were probably upset with remote services and might prefer to have in-person services.
When done correctly, however, teletherapy has proven to be just as successful at helping clients achieve their speech-language goals as in-person therapy. In order to talk about teletherapy, let’s first talk about what teletherapy is not. Teletherapy is not a recording of a therapist. It is not a video. Teletherapy is a live session in which the therapist and client can see and hear each other. Imaginative SLP goes one step further and offers a variety of activities that are mostly hands-on, in order to keep our clients engaged during the therapy session. Your child will not just be staring at a screen during their session. Before opening a virtual private practice, I worked in a school as a speech-therapist and used a variety of activities during my in person therapy sessions. Imaginative SLP uses the same activities during virtual sessions as were used during in-person sessions in the school. Whether your child is working on speech-sound skills or language skills, Imaginative SLP has activities that are hands-on to engage your child. It will feel like in-person services. The only difference is you will be in the comfort of your own home and looking at the therapist while I use multiple screens and multiple cameras in order to ensure that your child receives the best quality speech-language therapy possible.
Teletherapy also comes with convenience. A Speech-Language Pathologist is licensed in an entire State. This means that if you have therapy scheduled for that day, and you cannot be at your house, but you have a device and internet, you can have therapy wherever you are! You also do not have to leave your house to go to a physical location in bad or cold weather. You can still make sure your child receives their therapy when you are sick and cannot take them to a physical location.
Not everyone knew how to make remote services engaging and educational in order to help improve knowledge and skills. Many educators had no interest in learning new skills for teletherapy because it is more difficult than what they already knew. Do not let these educators or bad experiences turn you away from trying teletherapy services with a therapist who knows how to provide services that your child will benefit from. Teletherapy can provide the same improvements and gains that in-person therapy can provide, but with added benefits and convenience. See for yourself!
Visit my Speech Services page today to schedule a consultation with Imaginative SLP, LLC!
