5 Tips for Successful Online Speech Therapy

Full transcript

Hi, I'm Nicole Kolenda, pediatric speech-language pathologist, mom, marathon runner, and your Voice for Possibility. Today I wanted to pop in to quickly talk about some tips for parents who are doing Zoom speech therapy sessions with their children, which hasn't been easy.

As soon as the pandemic started back in March, I, like everybody else, switched my whole business online. A big portion of my business is treating clients with speech sound disorders. Although I had been comfortable on Zoom, because I've been teaching online for four or five years at this point for NYU, it's very different to do therapy online, and it's very different with toddlers.

What I realized immediately, and I know my colleagues and the students I've supervised did too, is that the parent now plays such an important role in these sessions. Before, I would really work on getting the parent out of the room so that my client wasn't distracted and I could just have them individually. Now I have to use the parent as a vessel for my goals, to go through the parent, and the parent acts out what I want to have in the session. So what are my tips, and what have I found to be working over the past couple of months?

Rethink the session length

The first thing is rethinking the session length. We have many kids who could sit for a 45-minute session in person, but on Zoom that's too much. One thing I noticed is that my 45- or 30-minute kids really were doing well with 20-minute sessions, just quick, frequent ones. Many of them were in school at the time, spending a lot of time on Zoom, so the additional strain of being on it again for a therapy session was maybe just too much.

I never did 20-minute sessions before. With those clients, we'd come in, bang out our goals in a quick 20 minutes, practice our targets, and then say goodbye, and that seemed to be really helpful. So again, the first thing I would consider is rethinking the session length, and typically that means making it shorter for Zoom.

Know the targets beforehand

The second thing that's worked really well is sending my clients or their parents what my targets are beforehand. In some instances I'm doing testing, so I'll send them the test sheet beforehand so they can see what the target actually is, with the picture. For those of us who have been practicing a long time, sometimes it's really obvious and sometimes it's not. This way the parent can understand what we're looking for in terms of the target output.

I also always set up a treatment plan, and in it I always have my target word choices. Letting the parents know ahead of time what those goals are will really clue them in to how to get the most out of the time with you.

A space free of distractions

The third thing, which I have everybody consider, myself included, is to work in a space that is free of distractions. That's not always easy to come by these days when everybody is home doing their thing, but try to find the place in the house with the fewest distractions so that your child can be present for the session.

In many instances your therapist may have a booked-up schedule and will have to sign off exactly at the time the session was supposed to end. If you spend five minutes trying to get to a good location in the house, you're losing five minutes of therapy time.

Model what your SLP says

The other thing I want parents to think about is modeling what you hear your speech-language pathologist saying to your child. In many instances I'm saying only one word on purpose. Maybe the target word is "eat," and the picture is of a little girl eating a cookie. My goal in that moment is "eat." I don't want the child to attempt "eat cookie," because that's too hard.

So if I'm saying, "Try to say 'eat,'" and the parent is saying, "Eat cookie," or "Eat the cookie," it really takes away from my goal. I always encourage parents to listen to what I'm saying and to expect that the child will attempt the production. If you make the target production too long, too complicated, or too hard, with too many syllables, they won't even try it. Especially with children who have speech sound disorders, we need to get them to attempt. It's from those attempts that we pull more attempts, and then we get clarity.

Set up reinforcements

The last thing I always say is to set up reinforcements, whatever those may be. This way we can keep the child actively engaged for the duration of the session. On my end, I might have videos of their favorite character, or I've hand-picked games online that I know will keep them motivated. On your end, it might mean telling them they'll get to go outside after, do something fun, or have a treat. We want to capitalize on this potent time of practicing speech targets on the Zoom call, and the best way to set that up is to have those reinforcers handy.

Just to retrace, and I didn't say this before, I'm actually kind of excited about the progress my clients have made over Zoom. If the pandemic hadn't happened and I hadn't attempted this type of therapy, I wouldn't have known the progress I've been seeing with some of my little clients was even possible. That's really exciting.

The five tips

So, to go back to my five tips. Consider a shorter session. Ask your therapist beforehand for exactly what the targets are, whether that's target words or an assessment like I talked about. Having a heads-up on what the targets will be is infinitely helpful for the therapist and for the session.

Try to work in a space without distractions, or at least scope out the space with the fewest. Model what your SLP is saying. The reason your SLP is choosing the language and targets she's using is that she believes they're most important for your child. And lastly, set up reinforcements if needed.

Thanks for joining me. I hope everything is going well with teletherapy, and if anything, you can always reach me at [email protected] if you have any questions. Take care.