Online assessment and therapy

Our speech and language therapists are able to carry out voice assessment and therapy online, allowing you regular therapy sessions from the comfort of your own home in a time and place suitable for you.

The assessment and therapy sessions will take place over Skype. They will take the form of regular sessions but will just be administered over screen.

We can also provide online voice reviews and training.

Online services for voice can provide many benefits for the child and their families. It is not always convenient for individuals to come for an appointment in the clinic or school settings and some individuals may see a home visit as inappropriate. The purposes of our online services include:

• Therapy and assessment at a convenient time and place to suit you and the child.
• Fits into your daily life.
• No travel expenses involved.

Online therapy and assessment will not be appropriate for everyone, depending on the accessibility or the needs of the child. Each case will be discussed individually with one of our speech and language therapists to ensure that online voice therapy is appropriate for you.

Following an initial telephone consultation with one of our team, if online assessment and therapy is appropriate for you, a time that is convenient for you to connect with one of our speech and language therapists will be confirmed. An online assessment of voice will then be delivered online over Skype as it would in clinic or in school depending on the type of voice difficulty your child is experiencing.

A speech and language therapist will begin by taking a detailed case history from the parents or carers over Skype. This will be a discussion of the child's medical and family history, your concerns and the perception of their voice and discussion of their voice use in different environments. This will be a good opportunity for you to voice any concerns you may have and any goals you aspire your child to achieve through voice therapy.

The speech and language therapist will then ask to talk to your child over Skype, supervised by you. They will play fun verbal games over Skype and have an informal chat about things they are interested in. This is a good opportunity for the therapist to get to know your child and also to listen to their voice and the difficulties they may be having. Depending on the age and ability of your child will depend on the appropriacy of an online assessment. An online assessment will gather enough information if your child is able to focus over the internet and is able to engage in some verbal conversation. In some instances the therapist may not be able to discover enough information from a Skype session, in this circumstance you may be asked to come into clinic or attend a home visit. This is just so we get a better picture of your child’s abilities so we can tailor the therapy better for them.

Online therapy will be tailored to the needs of the individual child and will be based on their goals. If online therapy has been deemed appropriate by our speech and language therapists the voice therapy may involve:

One to one treatment

One to one treatment will take place over Skype. This involves a real time video where the child and the therapist can communicate with each other. The child will have to be supervised by the parent or carer. The therapist will talk the child through some activities to help improve their voice difficulties. The therapist may have also emailed you some exercise sheets that you can use alongside the therapy.

Training

Our speech and language therapists are able to provide parents with training sessions to improve their child’s voice. This will most likely take place over Skype and the therapist will talk the parent or carer through useful activities they can use to help their child with their voice difficulty. This will also be a good opportunity to ask the speech therapist any questions you may have about your child’s difficulty, progress or the therapy activities.

This training can also be provided to school staff if requested for voice, speech language and communication training.

Reviews

Reviews of the child’s progress can also be administered through online therapy. This may take place over Skype so that the speech therapist can hear the child's voice and discuss the progress with the child and their parents. This will enable the speech and language therapist to ensure the input they are providing is still appropriate and beneficial to the child.

Reviews can also take place through voice recordings being sent to the therapist in a file over email. They will then be able to store the progress of the child through their voice therapy to be used to monitor and look back at the benefits they have received through therapy.

The appropriacy of our online voice services will continuously be assessed for each child. In some circumstances you may be invited into clinic or school if certain therapeutic techniques need to be delivered with the child's attendance.

If you would like any more information on the online services we offer do not hesitate to contact one of our speech and language therapists on office@sltforkids.co.uk or call 0330 088 2298.