By Kelly Beddall, teli Speech Language Pathologist
Understanding teli’s teletherapy during COVID-19
Your child has been approved for Early Intervention and you want to get started. Learn about teli’s speech & language pathology teletherapy sessions.
What does a teli Speech Therapy teletherapy session look like?
A Speech Therapist (ST) is focused on assessing and enhancing a child’s communication abilities to enable them to effectively express themselves.
By incorporating play, books and songs into activities of daily living, a Speech Therapist coaches parents and caregivers through practical strategies to help their child get their message heard while reducing their frustration of being unable to tell you what they want.
Early Intervention through virtual teletherapy technology enables the ST to listen and observe your child, in a similar way to when they are visiting in the home. But don’t be stressed about having your child’s face in front of the camera at all times, they can gather a lot when observing you and your child in an activity with the phone or laptop in the background.
Importantly, your Speech Therapist will talk to you about what you are seeing and hearing from your child and what you believe are some areas or goals you would like to work through. The teletherapy session is an opportunity to troubleshoot those areas and coach you, providing strategies and tools to address your child’s speech and language development.
Speech teletherapy sessions to get your toddler communicating!
During your teletherapy, your ST will employ a total communication approach with using gestures, signs, words and pictures. Understanding how to incorporate this approach into your routine and your child’s favorite activities, will be most effective in helping your child achieve their potential.
Your therapist may encourage you to demonstrate and encourage your child to repeat sounds such as “Vroom” for a car or an animal sound tied to a picture of the animal while reading their favorite book. This method can reinforce essential communication skills in a very natural yet effective way.
Another valuable tactic could involve engaging a sibling in a communication activity with your child. Have their brother or sister name an item, such as a stuffed animal or toy and encourage their brother or sister to repeat after them.
Your Speech Therapist is there for you to help you develop a host of tools for you and your child to experiment with and test during your time together. Interactive play, books and songs are part of the keys to learning. Your ST can provide access to additional resources to supplement your own resources such as books, videos and online library options that provide more variety for you and your child.
What might a Speech teletherapy session help address?
A Speech/Language teletherapy session can help to bring home, literally, the support for your child during a very important developmental time in your child’s lifetime. Our teli parents have been thrilled to take advantage of Early Intervention teletherapy to insure they don’t miss the opportunity to continue to get the help for their child when a face to face option is not possible.
Often an example can provide a good perspective, so meet Danny, a toddler struggling to make a verbal request for something that he wants. Instead of using words to describe his need, he points and grunts.
Mom and their Speech Therapist might brainstorm ways to work on this challenge through picture communication. Based on Danny’s likes, Mom develops a list and with the help of her ST creates a collection of online picture cards while they are talking, with the items such as a banana, green grapes, yogurt, goldfish or a favorite stuffed animal, book or song.
Mom shows Danny a card and sounds out the word and encourages Danny to repeat. In this way, he can begin to use his words along with pictures to make his request, using a part of his daily routine to incorporate an Early Intervention activity.
After a period of time of practicing with his Mom, Danny literally took his Mom’s phone into his bedroom and proudly showed and named all of his stuffed animals for their Speech Therapist to see!
teli Early Intervention Teletherapy
Incorporating technology at this time to help families and their children have the chance to continue their therapy is priceless. Before long, our families remark that it becomes more natural as both the therapist and the family realize the phone can help to integrate their child’s care into their own routines. If you would like to consider teli Early Intervention teletherapy, just give us a call at 412-922-8322 and we can get you started in no time—- assisting your child reach their full potential!
