Remote Therapy for Special Needs Students Finally Viewed as Viable Option
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 05/14/20
A
company that connects speech and language pathologists and other
special needs therapists with schools and students has set up a
program for structuring remote therapy. TherapyTravelers
has been able to link 250 therapists with school districts, providing
remote therapy to about 10,000 students. The company is also running
a webinar
series
to help educators and staff understand how to implement remote
education services.
Referrals
have included:
-
Remote
education strategy implementation advisors and education trainers;
-
Speech-language
pathologists;
-
Occupational
and physical therapists;
-
School
psychologists;
-
Social
workers;
-
Licensed
marriage and family therapists;
-
Behavioral
therapists and interventionists; and
-
Special
education and general education teachers.
"If
there is a silver lining to this terrible virus, it is that out of
necessity school districts have become more open to remote learning,"
noted CEO Geneve Milne in
a blog post.
"This is a really important evolution because now school
districts that have struggled to recruit speech language pathologists
are likely to be more comfortable offering teletherapy to their
students. This will help ease the lack of trained, licenses
speech-language pathologists available to districts and help
districts be more prepared when external forces keep students away
from their special needs educator."
"Teletherapy
is an effective and efficient way to provide even the most difficult
types of therapy and counseling to students, and I truly believe it
is the wave of the future," added Margaret Curley, manager of
remote education and teleservices for the company.
About the Author
Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.