Telepractice Training for Early Intervention with Children who are Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing

Abstract

Telepractice is an increasingly popular service delivery model for serving individuals with communication disorders, particularly infants and toddlers who are Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) served under Part C Early Intervention programs (Behl, Houston, & Stredler-Brown, 2012). Recent studies have demonstrated that telepractice is effective for providing children who are DHH and their families with access to high quality early intervention services (Behl et al., 2016; Blaiser, Behl, Callow-Heusser, & White, 2013). While telepractice has grown in popularity, there continues to be a lack of formalized training opportunities to help providers become more familiar with telepractice (Behl & Kahn, 2015). This paper outlines online training courses for providers, families, and administrators of programs for children who are DHH. Recommendations for follow up training and staff support are included.