Speech and language therapy planning in telepractice

Abstract

Telepractice is the provision of interventions (diagnosis, therapy, counseling and mentoring) from a distance, in which telecommunications provide the medium for the interactions between the speech therapist, the patient, the latter’s relatives and other professionals. The transition from direct to remote form of speech therapy work requires a reformulation of therapeutic goals and an adaptation of the tasks and the means to achieve them, so as to ensure maximum effectiveness of therapy. The aim of the present study is to establish how the impact of telepractice on the components of therapeutic planning is assessed in cases where remote work is the only possible form of speech therapy intervention as well as what is the professionals’ subjective assessment of its advantages and disadvantages based on their own experience. Twenty-three speech therapists from all kinds of spheres were interviewed: education, healthcare, social assistance and private practice. The obtained results can serve as a starting point in the planning of speech therapy strategies in the conditions of telepractice and in the understanding of their main components: temporal, technical and technological, content-related and methodological.

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