In light of the Coronavirus epidemic, Talk With Us LLP are embracing remote therapy. We have always offered remote therapy but not on such a large scale. It is an exciting time for us as we all try to adapt, setting up our home offices and working in different ways.
What are Talk With Us doing?
The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists have advice on teletherapy: http://www.rcslt.org/members/delivering-quality-services/telehealth/telehealth-guidance. Our therapists have been working very hard to give parents and children multiple options for continuing therapy during the Coronavirus epidemic.
We have sent out packs for children, consisting of individually tailored resources and activities to suit the needs and targets of the child. We then maintain contact with parents, via email or on the phone to ensure that they are understood.
Also we have begun delivering teletherapy – therapy delivered via different applications including Zoom, Microsoft teams, Google Classroom, Skype, Whats App and FaceTime. This may not be suitable for every child, but where appropriate we are delivering speech and language therapy through the use of games, activities or simply giving parents advice and strategies and this is working very well as we have received lots of positve feedback from both schools and parents.
What’s been most challenging?
Talk With Us LLP are always looking for different ways to develop and find new and exciting ways of working. Remote working is no different. Our therapists are using different apps and and programmes like PowerPoint, screen sharing and online games. We are always trying to think of ways to make activities and games as engaging as possible, especially for the little ones during the Coronavirus epidemic!
What’s been learnt?
We realised just how much can be done at home to support speech and language! Giving strategies to parents is so important as it keeps parents involved and more aware of their child’s strengths and needs. Parental involvement has also ensured that children have progressed through their targets much quicker. It also helps to make activities fun and children can still meet their targets indirectly, using the child’s interests to motivate them. Here are some top tips for home!
If you are working on speech sounds… go on a scavenger hunt for items containing their speech sound! Ask them to insert this into a phrase e.g. “I found a..”. Or, ask your child to go through their favourite book/magazine and identify pictures of objects containing that sound. Perhaps have a sound of the week!
If you are working on vocabulary or describing… ask your child to find objects within the house and hide it. Then they can describe what the object is! You could also have two objects that the child compares and explains the differences between. Perhaps they could go around the house and remember items in a certain location/category and then recall as many items as they can (e.g. items in the bathroom/fridge/bedroom)!
If you are working on questions… you can use picture books, recent family photos, an engaging YouTube video or even a TV show. Ask ‘wh’ questions (e.g. what, where, when) about each of these! You could also play 20 questions, taking turns to ask questions to determine what the object is.
For any interested parents not currently involved with us
If there are any parents who have concerns or worries about their child’s speech and language levels during this testing period, please feel free to get in contact with us. We are still able to conduct assessments and therapy (where appropriate) for new clients and would love to hear from you.
Stay safe out there!