Does Teletherapy for Speech Therapy Work? 5 Common Concerns Parents Have About Teletherapy

Amid the outbreak of COVID-19, many are being cautious and avoiding in person interactions. From groceries to doctors appointments, people are being creative in the way they deliver their goods or services to their customers. This applies even to the field of speech and language therapy! For those whose children receive speech or language therapy, you may have some questions as to if teletherapy really works or not. In this article, we will be going over common concerns that parents have about teletherapy. 

Concern: My child will be looking at the screen all day between schooling, therapies, and free time. 

Facts: The American Academy of Pediatrics has set recommendations to avoid screen time for those under the age of 24 months and to limit screen time for all children. BUT the exception to this is video chatting! Teletherapy (in the video chat format) is different from the screen time that your child is used to for their free time. Your child is no longer logging onto an iPad or laptop with the intention of simply being entertained. There is live interaction and learning happening as your child’s therapist talks and plays with your child while still working on your child’s goals. In fact, there was a study done by Roseberry, Hirsh-Pasek, and Golinkoff (2013) that shows that children can learn new words through video chats and live interaction, but not through prerecorded videos, supporting the fact that screen time for teletherapy video conferencing is in fact beneficial for your child’s learning. Long story short, this kind of screen time is the good kind of screen time!

Concern: My child is too young for teletherapy. They can’t sit still in front of a computer for long. 

Facts: This situation actually provides for greater growth in your child’s language if you are committed to it. For children that are too young to sit still, your therapist will be doing a coaching model of therapy with you, which essentially allows for you to learn the techniques you can use to help your child’s speech or language skills grow. This is an amazing opportunity for you to take what you learn in working with your child and SLP during teletherapy time and implement it throughout your whole week. At the end of the day, you are the person who is with your child the most, so you have the most potential to impact your child’s growth. An SLP can only work with your child a few times a week for an hour or less per session, but you have many more hours in the day to be able to help your child at home. Please do not mistake this for a method in which you are trained to be your child’s therapist. For this method, a trained and certified Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) is needed to be able to watch you and provide instant feedback as to your implementation of the strategies and techniques that your speech therapist is coaching you on. 

Concern: Speech teletherapy services won’t work as well for my child as live, in-person services. 

Facts: There have been many studies completed that show that teletherapy is either just as effective or better than traditional in person services. Research studies have shown this to be true with many different disorders and populations, including those with Apraxia of Speech, AAC users, Autism, Deaf And Hard of Hearing children, feeding disorders, stuttering, speech sound disorders, Speech and language disorders, and traumatic brain injuries. In fact, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association tells SLP’s that teletherapy can only ethically be provided when the services are just as good or better that would have been provided in person.

Concern: My child will not want to sit and work through a teletherapy session.

Facts: This happens even during in person therapy services with some children. But do not fear! A great SLP will have many tools in her/his toolbox to help get your little one to cooperate and even have fun during teletherapy. One way to avoid unwanted refusal behaviors is to set up a reinforcement system of sorts (ie. rewards for completing teletherapy). Normally the speech therapist would be in charge of this during a session, but with the speech therapist's guidance you can brainstorm ideas as to what would work for the child based on your child’s interests. In the clinic setting it might look like 2 minutes to play a game at the end of the session, or specific treat at the end of the session for following set guidelines. The key to making this work is to lay down the expectations before you get started with the session. Children thrive on structure and knowing what is and is not allowed. Make sure you go over what happens if they follow the expectations (ie. a reward) and what happens if they don’t follow the expectations (ie. no reward). Most of the time this is enough to get the child to work for teletherapy if you have the right reinforcer. 

Concern: How can the speech therapist do his/her job when they are not physically in front of my child? 

Facts: Teletherapy is not a new form of therapy. In fact, teletherapy is considered a mode of service delivery, meaning just another way of providing therapy. The methods will be mostly the same. For techniques where the children might need physical cues (ie. maybe touching their mouths to show them where to make a sound), the therapist will work with the adult present during the session to follow through with those cues. In a sense, the adult in the home becomes the “hands and eyes” of the therapist, while the therapist is still in control and directing the therapy session.

I hope this helps you feel more confident in choosing to do teletherapy for your child. When you are ready to start, give us a call for a free consultation so we can discuss how we can help you and your family! We are highly rated and serve all of Florida! Make sure to check out our reviews on Google.

References:

1. https://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/news-features-and-safety-tips/Pages/Children-and-Media-Tips.aspx

2. https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cdev.12166

3. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1460-6984.12238

4. https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/teles4.2.61

5. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17549507.2018.1465123

6. http://telerehab.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/Telerehab/article/view/6129

7. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18649810/

8. http://telerehab.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/Telerehab/article/view/6135

9. https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/tmj.2017.0319

10. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1525740113484965

11. https://telerehab.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/Telerehab/article/view/6219

12. https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2019_PERSP-19-00106

13. https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/professional-issues/telepractice/