Online Speech Therapy for Virtual Schools

7/30/2019 Online Speech Therapy for Virtual Schools

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A Forum for School Leaders

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new realities

new choices

ONLINE SPEECH THERAP Y FOR VIRTUAL SCHOOLS

Shari Robertson, PhD, CCC-SLPJenny Kendall, M.A., B.S.

Im sure it is no surprise to you that the number o students enrolled in virtual schools isabsolutely soaring, but you might be surprised at how ast. The most recent data related tothe number o states that have enrollment in virtual schools and online courses shows over ahal million students as o a year ago and the growth rate is about 20%. There is also steady

growth in online charter schools. In 2011 there were 250,000 ull time students enrolled invirtual schools. Compare that to just 40,000 in 2002.

We are all eeling the growing need or special education services or the online studentpopulation. While there is no national data currently available, Pennsylvanias departmento education reports that 12% o their online students need special education services. Weknow that there will be continued growth in the number o students with disabilities enroll-ing in online schools.

Currently, the legal ramework o IDEA does not speci cally address special education ser-vices that are to be provided in a virtual environment. However, we believe it is likely that

new policies will be put in place with the next reauthorization o that particular law. It is alsoclear that the ederal government has taken note o these trends and it is investing in bestpractices in the delivery o special education services online, including speech languagetherapy. For instance, less than a year ago the ederal government awarded a grant to theNational State Directors o Special Education to establish a center or online learning andstudents with disabilities. This is a new initiative within the Center or Research on Learningat the University o Kansas.

The growing enrollment in online programs isnt the only thing driving demand or speechlanguage services. In act, there are a number o issues impacting the delivery o theseservices, including a critical shortage o quali ed Speech Language Pathologists, an ongo-

ing issue, regardless o the venue. So online delivery o these critical services is one way toalleviate some o these issues, so that children can receive appropriate services no matterwhere they live or where they are getting their educational experiences.

INTRODUCTION TO SPECIAL EDUCATION SERVICES FOR VIRTUAL

SCHOOLS

By Shari Robertson, PhD, CCC-SLP


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What is online speech therapy? It might seem ob vious to you, but you would be surprised athow o ten this question is asked, even by educators who deliver online instruction. It workslike other online instruction, using telecommunications technology to deliver speech lan-guage services rom a distance. But, the big question most people have, even i they workin a virtual school environment and are com ortable with online learning, is whether speechlanguage services provided remotely, online are e ective. In act, online speech languagetherapy is becoming a very well accepted method to deliver speech language services tostudents who attend virtual schools. This report will give you one special education direc-tors view rom the ront line, so to speak, because as you know, the implementation o anynew program has its twists and turns and its challenges. We asked Jenny Kendall, a specialeducation and virtual school expert, to share her experience integrating online speech lan-guage therapy with the online instructional environment. Jenny currently oversees specialeducation or K12 Inc. or 26 virtual academies. She has 20 years o experience with specialeducation and ten years o that with virtual schools.

I am excited to share my history with online speech language therapy and to provide youwith tips and tricks rom my rst-hand experience. But rst, let me tell you about K12, thecompany I work or. K12 started in 2000 and I joined the company shortly a ter that. Weo er K12 curriculum online, supported with text material and manipulatives. We have 26statewide virtual academies. At last count, 11.9% o our student population has disabilities.Some schools have a higher percentage and others may have a smaller or lower percentage,but on average 11.9% o our population are students with disabilities. We have students withtraumatic brain injuries, autism, cognitive disabilities, multiple handicaps, visually and hear-ing impaired. So we have students with needs across the board and at all o our statewidevirtual academies.

Students are enrolled in K12 schools or a variety o reasons, and it is our job to meet theirneeds and gure out how we can take those wonder ul regulations that de ne our basic ser-vices, that being IDEA, and nd a grey in the language that can apply to the virtual settingthat we all live and work in.

I began my career as a speech and language therapist and ell in love with serving studentswith disabilities. I went back to school and became a special education teacher, and thenyears a ter being a special education teacher, I moved to one o the rst statewide virtualacademies. I was kind o a one-man band, providing instruction, leadership and guidance. Ibegan serving as the special education director at the school. Now I am the national direc-tor o special programs or K12, and we have got quite a ew schools across the country andquite a ew di erent options.

ONLINE SPEECH THERAPY: A FRONTLINE PERSPECTIVE

By Jenny Kendall, National Director of Special Programs, K12 Inc.


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I began using online speech and language therap y in 2004 when I started one o the rststatewide virtual academies. It was quite a challenge to nd therapists as the school grew,especially in remote corners o the state. It was tough to have amilies drive long distanc-es to get to therapy sessions, and there were weather issues. At that time, there were oneor two providers that began to delve into the world o speech language telepractice. Theclassroom was completely di erent then compared to how it has evolved today. For amiliesthat join our schools now or have joined our schools in the past ew years, online is com-monplace. So now it is more commonplace and with new amilies it is part o our messageon the ront end and just the general acceptance o this nationwide. They expect us to saywe are going to provide speech language therapy through telepractice.

But it wasnt commonplace or our amilies that began using online therapy way back in2004 who were used to driving to the therapy agency. For them, we had to say, lets showyou how it can work and take you through a guidance session; lets talk to your existingtherapist and see what she/he thinks.

When we rst began delivering online speech language therapy, there were some chal-lenges and hurdles with the technology. In 2004, web-based con erencing tools were notso common. There were some downloads that had to be installed on computers. The re-sponsible teaching adult or learning coach in the home had to install these products. Andwhen they dont know how to do it, they would call the online or the telepractice provider,and that provider would talk them through how to install whatever the product is that theyneeded to install. They billed the school because they provided support and service. As aresult, or the student who needed 30 minutes o therapy a week, it took the learning coachthree hours and multiple phone calls to do the installation o di erent products. It got really

expensive since that 30-minute speech therapy session turned into our hours that I paid or.

That was the experience years and years ago. But now, there is better amiliarity with tech-nology across the board, rom our learning coaches as well as telepractice providers, andthere is a lot more support. The products come with white pages that tell us how to install,and there are pretty pictures with step-by-step instructions that explain what to do and iits not working. This alleviates a lot o the technical issues or start up.

Some other problems that we had were more provider-based. Going back eight or nineyears, there werent recording sessions and the progress monitoring tools were not asstrong as they are today. When and i there was a legal situation, we may not have had the

proo or the validation that the therapy was provided and that it was e ective.

So things have certainly changed over the years and they have been really positive. We arenot seeing hours and hours o technology issues. The plat orms that providers such as Pres-enceLearning use are so strong and so antastic that we just dont see the technology issuesand we see a bene t to the therapy that the students receive.


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When it comes to progress monitoring tools, I hav e no concern and would have no problemstepping into one o those process cases knowing that I have backups o the therapy o ev-ery session o every students progress. I am very con dent in the progress monitoring toolsthat are available in online plat orms today.

What about buy-in or online speech therapy? Way back when, it took some time to get thesta on board. Now, it is commonplace and I think what is so help ul to everybody enteringa virtual school is watching the live therapy sessions with students or the recorded sessionso live sessions with students. You can get a really good eel o what online speech therapylooks like and eels like. You can also play around with the tools. I think that helps anyonenew to online therapy and to get peers accepting and buying in.

When you are looking at establishing relationships with a telepractice agency, you will wantto be clear about your expectations o that provider. Ask them how long theyve been inbusiness and what kinds o data they have. Ask them i you can try out their plat orm. Askthem tough questions about how they monitor progress. Be sure you have a contract thatde nes your expectations and your hopes or quality, progress and service or your stu-dents.

The other thing that I think is hugely important to success with online speech therapy iscommunication and collaboration. What we have done is to work with large therapy agen-cies, not just to provide telepractice, but also to have meetings rom my level to the CEO othe company. We talk about what we are seeing globally, across the board at all o the K12schools, how can we work together, how can we can improve. There needs to be commu-nication rom the special education teacher, the speech language therapist, to the learning

coach, and really anybody who is involved in the students education. The therapist is thekey member o the team, not an exclusive member that joins or 30 minutes once a weekand provides therapy or the students and then walks away. The therapist is part o the IEPteam and is involved in progress monitoring across the board.

How can we better involve our online speech language pathologists into the academic realmo what the students do day-in and day-out? Part o the answer is preparing the therapist

or your school and your model o education, but particularly those in the eld o specialeducation. We have a lot o lingo and language that is speci c or special education, butthen we also have lingo and language that is speci c or our particular school setting. I saythings like OLS -- Online Learning Schools. In the curricular area, we have something called

GUM --Grammar Usage and Mechanics. But i I say gum you might be thinking o chewinggum like Trident, so we need to make sure our therapists are amiliar with our language andour plat orm.


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We also have to provide support to the therap y agency, making sure that parent and stu-dent and the learning coach have an introduction to the therapy in the plat orm and to thetherapist to be a part o that guiding process and really establish communication. Be veryclear about how o ten we are going to talk about the therapy and what are we going to talkabout. Be sure that i there is a problem with the speech and language therapy plat orm,that solving the problem isnt just between the learning coach and the therapist. The schoolneeds to be involved too. I there is a problem and the learning coach and students are notmeeting as expected or sessions, that is not just between the learning coach and the ther-apist, that the school and the IEP team in aware and involved. It is not a 2:1 kind o ratio.Success depends on a team working together and establishing clear lines o communication.

In the virtual school, the responsibility or writing an IEP and or managing IEP meetingslooks a little bit di erent school to school. Primarily we use a web-based con erencing tool.The students IEP is pulled up on the screen and all parties are in attendance, including thetherapist. Yes, the online speech language therapist is actually a part o that team and is re-quired to be in attendance. It is a great time or the team to look at a students progress andanswer questions. The IEP is typically an annual document but hope ully it is reviewed on aquarterly basis on the same plat orm. It is important to give the team time to talk togetherto see how they can work together to meet the students needs.

Scheduling students in the online environment is so much more fexible than the old wayand when I say scheduling, its about the ace-to- ace component. Online delivery leads tofexibility. The therapy is based on a time that works or the therapist and the amily and thestudent, so it is much more wide open than the traditional therapy. One o the best bene tso using online speech therapy is the fexibility o scheduling. The therapist that we work

with rom PresenceLearning and other agencies are antastic. The many windows o time ortherapy means students in our virtual environment are not pulled away rom their generaleducation and special education teachers. It means less transportation time and more time

or students to work on academics and therapy. I couldnt rave more about the fexibility inscheduling.

Sometimes Im asked i our students get to express their pre erence regarding having onlineintervention versus live therapy. I think any decision in regard to what would be developedin an IEP is an IEP team decision and the student is de nitely a part o that team. The stu-dents ability to vocalize their wants and needs vary student by student, but the student isde nitely a part o that team. I our students express what they need, the school will work

with the students and the amily to honor that request. Ultimately it is an IEP decision, withthe student being a key part o that team. There are times that ace-to- ace therapy is stillwarranted and necessary so it is really based on the needs o the students, the leader whodrives that.


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Over the years we have had a ew par ents who did not want to be involved in online speechtherapy services. A lot o times we were able to overcome this by introducing this methodslowly, continuing the conversation. We promise the amily and the student that they can tryonline therapy and talk about it and explore it, and can agree that it may be the best prac-tice. But, i it doesnt work, we need to go back and reconsider, so keeping that open line ocommunication is critical. I have had a ew parents that were slow to move, but in most cas-es, the movement occurred in a couple years and the amilies are now very satis ed with thetelepractice. Sometimes it just takes time and really showing amilies that you are there towork with them and promising that we will work through it, and i the online therapy doesntwork, we can go right back to where we were with the traditional approach.


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About The Authors

Shari Robertson, PhD, CCC-SLP is a Pro es sor o Speech-Language Pathology and DeansAssociate or Graduate Studies and Research at Indiana University o Pennsylvania. She hastaught undergraduate and graduate coursework in language development and disorders,phonology, counseling, literacy, and clinical experiences or 15 years. Dr. Robertson has beenan ASHA member or thirty years and is a two-term past-president o the PennsylvaniaSpeech-Language-Hearing Association. Dr. Robertson is a well-known speaker on a varietyo topics across the country and internationally, including as an invited presenter at numer-ous ASHA Conventions, ASHA Schools Con erences, and ASHA Health Care/Business Insti-tutes.

Shari Robertson, PhD, CCC-SLP

Jenny Kendall is National Director o Special Programs or K12 Inc. She oversees special edu-cation, Federal Title programs, RTI and more across 26 statewide virtual academies and ad-ditional unique blended learning environments. She was previously the Director o SpecialEducation or the Ohio Virtual Academy, a school powered by K12. Ms. Kendall has workedin the eld o virtual education or over ten years and the eld o special education or overtwenty years.

Jenny Kendall, National Director of Special Education Programs for K12 Inc.


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At PresenceLearning, we love to see children thrive , which is why we are making thepromise o live online speech therapy (sometimes called telepractice) come true.

With the ongoing shortage o SLPs (speech language pathologists) and budget pressuresin school districts reaching crisis proportions, innovative modes o delivery have becomeessential or giving children the speech therapy services they need.

A large and growing body o research, starting with a seminal study by the Mayo Clinic in1997, demonstrates that live online speech therapy is just as e ective as ace-to- ace therapy. Our mission is to make live online speech therapy practical, a ordable and convenient whileproviding an extraordinary therapy experience or each child. The PresenceLearning solutionincludes:

access to our large and growing network of top-notch SLPs the latest video-conferencing technology the most engaging games and evidence-based activities time-saving collaboration and practice management tools targeting SLPs and educators

Join the growing group o SLPs, educators and parents committed to seeing children thriveas part o the online speech therapy revolution.

About SPED Ahead

About PresenceLearning

SPED Ahead is an opportunity or school administrators and special education specialists tocatalyze discussions about new ideas and promising practices that help exceptionalstudents achieve. With a series o ree interactive online events and related multimedia web-based resources, we will explore answers to tough questions and shape e ective leadershipstrategies or addressing special needs students challenges or literacy skills, scholasticachievement and peer relationships.

Online Speech Therapy for Virtual Schools

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