Telepractice Today

Amy Yacoub, MS, CCC-SLP has provided in-person Speech Therapy in an outpatient pediatric hospital setting for over 10 years. She is the founder of Sunshine City Speech Therapy, a private practice in which she provides teletherapy, consulting services, and blog writing within the field of Speech Pathology. A consultant for several tech-based Speech Therapy apps and programs, Amy is the partner network manager for Kokolingo, a digital platform for articulation therapy. Kokolingo contains fun, treasure-hunt themed games for children to target articulation of speech sounds. Its unique features include video modeling of speech sounds, the ability to create multiple users, logging of data and statistics, and the option to invite parents to use the program at home. Currently, SLPs can create a therapist account and receive 1 year for free at www.Kokolingo.com. 

I am an ASHA certified speech-language pathologist and have provided speech-language therapy services through my private practice, Jill Shook Therapy, since 2015.

In 2017, I decided that I was tired of having to reinvent the wheel whenever I had a question about my practice, because I couldn’t afford to spend hundreds of dollars on a course, and nothing I found seemed to have the information listed out in steps.

I sat down to write out a “quick checklist” for other SLPs… and 10 months later had created my own 4-hour course that I called Private Practice Prep School. I posted it to Teachable. It spread quickly by word of mouth, and by the time I closed the doors in 2019, hundreds of SLPs had benefited from it.

I re-recorded the course and launched it via Northern Speech Services in 2019, so it could reach as many SLPs as possible. It’s now called Private Practice Essentials and offers 3.5 ASHA CEU’s. I still see private speech therapy clients part time in addition to consulting and presenting, because I am so passionate about supporting other SLPs.

I love to spend time with my family, and on the rare occasion that I have a spare minute, I love to run, read trashy romance novels and nonfiction history (my record is 146 books in 2021), and indulge in Handel's Ice Cream (my favorite flavor is Banana Cream Pie. Have you tried it?)

Diana Parafiniuk is a seasoned and nationally recognized business leader in the teletherapy market. Her company, E-Therapy, pioneered the teletherapy industry in education with its innovative practices, services, solutions, and first-to-market approaches to serve Pre-K-12 schools and students. Diana received the prestigious Women's Achievers Award from the Arizona Capitol Times for Women who excel in businesses advancing communities and making a difference in people's lives. Diana's in-depth expertise comes from her extensive experience as a certified speech language pathologist holding certificates of clinical competence, providing speech and language services to online and brick-and-mortar schools across the USA. Diana's entrepreneurial innovation is the heart of E-Therapy's programming and services that have supported students' special education services nationally. Through creativity, passion, and relationship building, Diana has built out E-Therapy's mental health programming to meet the education market's needs for educators and students, serving the wellness of whole school communities. Diana served as an adjunct professor at Northern Arizona University teaching classes in SLPA childhood Communication Science Disorders and Screening and Treatment. She holds a MA degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders, as well as a BA in Spanish and Linguistics from Northern Arizona University.

Sara Smith, MS, CCC-SLP is Lead Product Manager with E-Therapy. She has worked

extensively in the teletherapy space and has presented nationally on best practices for

teletherapy in the fields of speech pathology, early education, and telemental health.

Sara is an independent app developer and has several speech therapy apps available on iTunes. She currently works with E-Therapy developing video content for trainings, webinars, and works closely with E-Therapy’s mental health team to create dynamic digital resources for E-Therapy’s on-demand eQUIP Mental Health training platform. 

Dr. Deborah R. Campbell is the owner and president of Superior Therapy Services, Inc. She has been a Certified and Licensed Speech/Language Pathologist for over 27 years. Dr. Campbell is also a Certified Dyslexia Testing and Treatment Specialist. She currently is the chair for the Florida Association of Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists’ (FLASHA) Government Relations Medicaid Committee.  

Dr. Campbell additionally works as a special education advocate with the Special Education Law and Advocacy practice and is a visiting research scholar at the University of South Florida.

In 2021, she received FLASHA’s “Clinician of the Year” award and is a 2022 nominee for ASHA’s Louis DiCarlo award. Between 2021 and 2022, she published three studies on the COVID-19 pandemic and telehealth.  

Howard Goldstein is Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders in the College of Behavioral and Community Sciences at University of South Florida- Tampa. His research has focused on improving the communication and social skills of children with autism and other developmental disabilities. His recent work has sought to enhance the language and literacy development of students in high poverty schools who are at high risk for language and reading disabilities. He is the author of 2 books, 2 curricula, and over 150 scholarly journal articles and book chapters and a nationally known scholar for his research in the field of child language intervention. He served as ASHA Vice President for Science and Research 2013-2015. Dr. Goldstein’s contributions to the field were recognized through Honors of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association in 2016 and Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2020.

Sean Sweeney, MS, MEd, CCC-SLP, is a speech-language pathologist and technology consultant working in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, MA and at Boston University. Sean spent over a decade in the public school setting serving in the roles of SLP and instructional technology specialist. His blog, SpeechTechie, was inspired by the combination of those complementary vocations and a desire to empower those in his field to employ technology in their work. Sean currently consults to and presents for local and national organizations on technology integration in speech and language interventions. Sean has been a regular columnist for The ASHA Leader, a Jeopardy! contestant, and a hiker of various trails. Contact him at [email protected].

Sarah N. Douglas, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies. She started her career as a special education teacher for children with disabilities and complex communication needs, and continued on to academia obtaining a degree in Special Education from Penn State University. Her research focuses on autism, developmental disabilities, paraeducators, augmentative and alternative communication including interventions and technologies to support social and communication skill development for children with disabilities. Many of her interventions are conducted via telepractice and she gathers much of her research data using telepractice approaches. When she’s not hanging out in academic settings Sarah likes to spend time in nature (hiking, kayaking, seeing beautiful foliage) and travel.

Website: https://raddlab.hdfs.msu.edu

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RADDlabMSU

Email: [email protected]

Podcast: https://www.3cdigitalmedianetwork.com/telepractice-today-podcast

Emeritus Professor Deborah Theodoros of the University of Queensland, Australia, is considered an international expert in the delivery of telepractice services in the field of Speech-Language Pathology. She has published numerous research articles and book chapters on the use of telepractice to provide services to patients with motor speech disorders and related diagnoses. She continues to collaborate on research studies with her colleagues, and Professor Theodoros remains in high demand as a speaker at professional conferences internationally.

Nathan coordinates clinical services and provides telepractice services for school-aged children. He is a lead instructor in Waldo County General Hospital's speech telepractice training program. He has taught telepractice courses at universities. Nathan has presented at national conferences on speech telepractice and integrating speech therapy services into school curricula. He has co-written articles in the ASHA Leader and presented webinars for ASHA on integrating literacy in preschool telepractice services.  Nathan enjoys developing authentic materials.