Telepractice Experiences in a University Training Clinic

Abstract

Telepractice is a rapidly growing means of providing remote speech-language pathology and audiology services to clients. The primary advantage of telepractice in speech-language therapy is that it improves the accessibility of services. Improved accessibility is important in serving not only clients in rural areas, but also those who are unable to visit the clinic because of physical disability. Telepractice may also make it easier for clients to engage in more intense therapy schedules, because the burdens associated with traveling to and from the clinic are removed. For these reasons, we suggested graduate students in speech-language pathology gain experience in telepractice delivery of services. This article describes our experience training graduate students in the use of telepractice delivery of speech-language therapy. Three different treatment protocols were used with nine different clients. In addition, important issues related to the use of telepractice are identified.