Telepractice Today

Robin L. Alvares, Ph.D., CCC-SLP has been a speech-language pathologist for 34 years.  Her professional practice and research has focused on individuals with communication disorders with a focus on working with individuals with limited verbal communication skills in emergent literacy.  She has worked in a variety of clinical settings including university clinics, residential facilities, brick-and-mortar schools and providing therapy to school-aged children via telepractice. 

Shannon Sharma is a school-based speech language pathologist, working with children who are deaf or hard of hearing in Listening and Spoken Language communication programs.  Shannon is passionate about involving families in her students’ therapy, which lead her to develop Virtual Parent-Sessions. Virtual Parent-Sessions are an adaptation of the traditional teletherapy model in which the therapist is working directly with the student while the parent joins the session through live video-conferencing technology. Through this function of teletherapy, she has had great success in coaching, counseling, and collaborating with families from school.

Stacey Pfaff has been a speech language pathologist for 15 years. She has worked in a variety of settings but mostly worked in education. She started to work as a teletherapist 3 years ago and has never looked back. Stacey  recently started a blog and has also been creating no print, digital speech therapy materials since she started as a teletherapist. Stacey is the creator over at My Teletherapy Room where she shares her journey and knowledge about teletherapy.  

Stacy Crouse is a graduate of Truman State University and Fontbonne University. She has been a Speech-Language Pathologist since 2008 and a Certified Auditory Verbal Therapist since 2017. She lives in Des Moines, Iowa with her husband and two children and has been providing teletherapy to students across the country since 2014. She also blogs and creates resources for teletherapy and working with children with hearing loss.

Theresa Koelsch is a full-time speech language pathologist who has been servicing students preschool through 5th grade via teletherapy for 2 years. She has experience working in pediatric outpatient clinics as well as schools in both the southern U.S. and the midwest. She received her undergraduate degree from the Ohio State University and a masters from The University of Toledo.  She has a teachers pay teachers store called "Ladyinthebox" where she creates speech and language materials with her husband who is an artist.  

Kim and Todd speak with Lyn Tindall Covert, PhD, CCC-SLP, ASHAF. Lyn is a retired speech-language pathologist and rehabilitation coordinator from the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Lexington, KY. Dr. Covert has 30 years experience using telecommunication technology to deliver speech and language services to veterans in satellite clinics and their homes. She was a founding member of ASHA’s Special Interest Group 18, Telepractice and served as the first editor of SIG 18 Perspectives. Her primary interests include safety and security of clients using telepractice to receive services. 

Kim and Todd speak with Tracy Sippl, MS, CCC-SLP, the owner & CEO of S&L Teletherapy Consulting. Tracy has been a practicing, Speech/Language Pathologist for 30 years. She has worked with students in schools for 24 years and has provided teletherapy services during the last six. She has experience from a parent, as well as a professional, perspective as one of her own children received school-based services.

Mrs. Sippl received teletherapy certification through the Speech Therapy Telepratice Accredited Training Program located at Waldo County General Hospital in Belfast, Maine. It is the only American Telemedicine Association (or ATA) accredited program in the United States.

She has worked with various teletherapy companies over the years and is familiar with many video-conferencing platforms that are available for remote treatment.She is an elected member of ASHA’s Special Interest Group (or SIG) 18-Telepractice Coordinating Committee and a panelist for the SIG 18 online chat, “Telepractice in Your School: Determining What Telepractice Models and Providers Are a Good Fit for Your District.”  Mrs. Sippl has created online, teletherapy courses and videos providing ASHA-approved, continuing education credits. She is an experienced presenter at the state and national levels, who has contributed articles about Teletherapy featured in The ASHA Leader and ASHA Sphere. Mrs. Sippl has a keen interest in- and commitment to- improving teletherapy services for both the provider and the client.

Elaine shares new resources from the Hanen Centre that support telepractice service delivery. She has been Executive Director of The Hanen Centre since 1992. Elaine is the co-author of the Hanen guidebooks It Takes Two to Talk: A Practical Guide for Parents of Children with Language Delays (Pepper & Weitzman, 2004), Learning Language and Loving It (Weitzman & Greenberg, 2002) and ABC and Beyond™:  Building Emergent Literacy in Early Childhood Settings. Her research on parent and teacher training in collaboration with Dr. Luigi Girolametto, Professor at the University of Toronto, has been widely published. Ms. Weitzman has an appointment as Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto, Department of Speech-language Pathology.

Kim and Todd interview Jenni Radford, a speech-language pathologist who is also a telepractitioner. Jenni shares her insights and experiences working with children with impoverished backgrounds and those who are English-as Second Language (ESL) users. Telepractice tips and current news updates are also shared.

Kim and Todd discuss the use of telepractice with school-age children with Lisa McBride, a speech-language pathologist.