By Speech and Language Therapist, Catherine Clancy
Magic Words Therapy has recently collaborated with specialist, bespoke online speech therapy software, designed by tech experts and speech therapists to start offering the option of online therapy sessions with the aim of making our therapy services more accessible to more people.
Our use of Online Therapy has provided convenience and flexibility for families we already see for therapy. For example, some families who live further away from our clinic have now chosen to receive some or all of their therapy sessions via teletherapy, from the comfort of their own living rooms. Teletherapy completely cuts out the time they used to spend travelling and sitting in traffic, giving them more time in their week to spend together.
During online sessions, we can provide therapy in real-time to support communication targets via this motivating and versatile platform, so that clients can access our high-quality therapy in a way that works around busy lifestyles.
We have found that the idea of Online Therapy can initially seem quite daunting for some clients, particularly to those who are a bit technology-phobic! However, having recently started delivering online therapy myself I’m excited to have branched out into this new and innovative field. Using teletherapy is actually pretty straight forward for both the therapist and the client. I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was compared to my expectations.
I have been impressed by how teletherapy has supported children’s progress and positively influenced my delivery of therapy. Below are my top 3 benefits of using online speech and language therapy:
1. Greater Flexibility: Teletherapy has allowed me to work flexibly around the busy lifestyles of the families I support. A parent decided to make the switch to teletherapy as it gave her family the ability to integrate regular sessions within a busy weekly routine, where commuting to clinic for therapy sessions would not have been realistic.
2. A Motivating and Versatile Platform: I have found that children love working with me via teletherapy sessions as they are really motivated to use technology they love like laptops and tablets. Online Therapy contains fun and engaging online resources that make it very enticing for children to join in with the activities. As a therapist I love that we can upload our own personalised resources onto the platform as well as being able to use apps from Virtual Speech Centre. Virtual Speech Centre is a well-renowned speech and language therapy app developer. https://www.virtualspeechcenter.com/
3. Better Use of Home Resources: Teletherapy is an online service where families and clients link in from home whilst the therapist is usually in an office environment. Because clients don’t have access to clinic resources, the therapist has to work innovatively to use online therapy resources and toys within the child’s everyday environment. This often means therapy is more functional as families are supported to use activities, resources and toys that are easily accessible. This supports the carryover of therapy and overall progress with targets.
In addition to my top 3 benefits of teletherapy, I think it’s really important to mention that the use of Teletherapy has also helped Magic Words Therapy and the families we support to reduce our collective impact on climate change. Online therapy sessions have resulted in less air-polluting car use for both therapists and families and a greater emphasis on online resources that don’t require printing which uses lots of paper and ink.
Despite its undeniable benefits there are of course some limitations to Teletherapy. This way of accessing therapy can work well for most clients, but not all. For some clients, face-to-face sessions are essential in order to support their engagement in therapy and overall outcomes. If you would like to discuss teletherapy as an option for your child I would highly recommend speaking to one of our therapists about this. They will be able to get to know your child and identify whether teletherapy would work for them and their unique needs.
