Speech therapy telepractice offers the opportunity to transform speech therapy using the power of an interactive, content-rich web environment.

This webinar illustrates the basic nuts and bolts of telepractice: platform selection, cool line and annotation tools, recording and authentic materials. This presentation provides an introduction/orientation to the core procedural and therapeutic competencies for successful telepractice.

Video examples will demonstrate features of a successful telepractice program including low cost/no cost telepractice platforms and web based treatment. Included will be outcome data demonstrating speech telepractice to be more effective than traditional speech therapy.

Telepractice has emerged as a standard of care in treatment & assessment, requiring competencies in digital clinical skills, preparation for virtual therapy sessions and understanding today’s patients are no longer the same patients traditional therapy was designed to treat.

This presentation provides a model for the future of speech therapy that is becoming a part of every speech language pathologist’s treatment armamentarium; much bigger and much sooner that most clinicians realize.

Today’s “electronically connected” client is no longer the same client that traditional speech-language therapy was designed to treat. Therefore, it is not surprising that telepractice has emerged as a standard of care in speech therapy treatment. Speech therapy telepractice (also referred to as telehealth and telerehabilitation), has many advantages in meeting patient needs and improving outcomes and efficiency (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2013; American Telemedicine Association, 2013). There is “ growing evidence that telerehabilitation leads to similar or better clinical outcomes when compared to conventional interventions” (World Health Organization, 2011).

Learning Outcomes:

1. Define 3 clinical competencies necessary for speech therapy telepractice.
2. List 6 core competencies of successful speech telepractice.
3. Identify critical security features for security/confidentiality of protected health information.