Wellness

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.