Perspectives of Speech-Language Pathologists on the Use of Telepractice in Schools: The Qualitative View

Abstract

Telepractice in speech-language pathology shows the potential to mitigate the current shortage of speech-language pathologists (SLPs) available to serve a growing number of persons with communication disorders. Since a majority of American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) certified SLPs work in schools and the population of communicatively impaired clients in schools continues to grow, research into the use of telepractice in the educational setting is warranted. This article reports upon the perspectives of SLPs regarding the use of telepractice in school settings. In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with five SLPs experienced in the delivery of telepractice. Four major themes emerged: barriers, benefits, reasons for acceptance and use of telepractice, and suggestions to resolve telepractice professional issues.

Stakeholders’ qualitative perspectives of effective telepractice pedagogy in speech–language pathology

“…Technology skills followed telepractice clinical skills in relative importance; the perceived need for technology skills lends support to reports that a major barrier to telepractice expansion is providers' limited ability to manage technological challenges and failures (ASHA 2002, Tucker 2012. Although today's students may perceive themselves as tech-savvy and are therefore confident in their technology skills, students' technology experiences are often limited to those of consumers and not as technological problem-solvers (Wang et al 2014).…”

Assessment and Treatment of Cognition and Communication Skills in Adults With Acquired Brain Injury via Telepractice: A Systematic Review

“…Differences in raters' perceptual judgments of participants' motor speech skills and participant test-retest performance variability were the reasons posited by Theodoros et al (2003), whereas Palsbo (2007) surmised that the lack of randomization of clinicians to a service delivery method and the conservative scoring of one clinician caused the discrepancy. The authors' conclusions are not cause to disregard previous research that suggests that disorder-and settingspecific considerations may be needed (Theodoros, 2011;Tucker, 2012); instead, those conclusions expand the type of factors that should be considered when examining why clinical and statistical differences exist between interrater agreement scores and test scores in future telepractice equivalence studies.…”

“…The importance of identifying disorder-and setting-specific considerations has been noted in previous research. For example, school-based SLPs who provided services via telepractice reported an inability to foster carryover because they could not go into the child's classroom (Tucker, 2012). Another example is a review by Theodoros (2011) in which difficulty obtaining accurate recordings of sound pressure level pre-and post-voice therapy via telepractice was reported in multiple studies.…”

“…In 2012, for example, 47% of school-based SLPs stated that job openings were more numerous than job seekers (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association [ASHA], 2012), and 24% of SLPs in home health agency settings or clients' homes reported funded, unfilled positions in 2013 (ASHA, 2013). Telepractice is a service delivery method that has been explored as an alternative approach to reducing the impact of the SLP shortage (Tucker, 2012) as well as addressing the service provision needs of patients who reside in remote areas or have limited access to services for other reasons (e.g., financial constraints, inadequate transportation; Hill & Theodoros, 2002;Mashima & Doarn, 2008;Theodoros, 2008;Tindall, 2012). Telepractice refers to "the application of telecommunications technology to the delivery of [SLP] and audiology professional services at a distance by linking clinician to client/patient, or clinician to clinician, for assessment, intervention, and/or consultation" (ASHA, n.d.).…”

Client, provider and community referrer perceptions of telehealth for the delivery of rural paediatric allied health services

“…A handful of telehealth studies examining stakeholder perspectives have been conducted in speech-language pathology for school-aged children [7][8][9][10][11] and occupational therapy early intervention. 12 No studies investigate barriers to communitybased multidisciplinary paediatric allied health telehealth from a multi-stakeholder perspective.…”