Large Idaho School District Fills Gap in Speech and Language Services with Online Speech Therapy
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (PRWEB) January 21, 2015 -- School districts spanning large areas, like 10,000-plus student Bonneville Joint School District 93 in Idaho Falls, ID, often struggle to hire and retain enough fully qualified speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to serve their widely dispersed schools. To more fully and frequently serve students with special needs, Bonneville Joint School District 93 is using PresenceLearning’s online therapy services.
“I was a skeptic at first. How would we get a student to learn language and speech articulation through a remote therapist on a computer,” said Rex Miller, Director of Special Education. “It has been interesting to see the games they can play on the computer and how excited the kids get about it. This is pretty powerful.”
After two full years of online speech therapy in the district, student outcomes in special education are at an all-time high. More than 90 percent of the district’s students using PresenceLearning have made progress toward their Individual Education Plan (IEP) goals.
This progress also helps students achieve outside of the classroom. Connor, a second grade student in the district, has a hearing weakness in one of his ears that was affecting his articulation and speech and ultimately his ability to be understood by his peers. During his online speech sessions, Connor hears a sound and then articulates it back to his remote therapist, helping him make strides toward better speech. Before working on his speech online, Connor had difficulty making friends, but with consistent, frequent online speech therapy, he is now understood and is much more social.
Since 2009, PresenceLearning’s online speech therapy and other related services have provided schools with a practical, affordable new option for service delivery: web-based access to a nationwide network of live, highly qualified, fully licensed speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists and mental health professionals who are available whenever and wherever they are needed. PresenceLearning also offers online assessments for both speech and occupational therapy, as well as social/emotional/behavioral assessments. By partnering with PresenceLearning, school districts can address capacity issues related to acute and chronic shortages of qualified clinicians, reduce high caseloads for onsite personnel, reduce their backlog of assessments, improve student outcomes and become more efficient. PresenceLearning also offers access to technical specialists, as well as culturally and linguistically diverse clinicians.
PresenceLearning has delivered half a million live online therapy sessions to students in public school districts, charter schools and virtual schools of all sizes nationwide.
About PresenceLearning
PresenceLearning (http://www.presencelearning.com) is the leading provider of online speech and occupational therapy, behavioral interventions and mental health services, and assessments for K-12 districts and families of children with special needs. PresenceLearning’s nationwide network includes hundreds of highly qualified speech language pathologists (SLPs), occupational therapists (OTs) and mental health professionals. Therapy sessions are delivered “anytime anywhere” via live videoconferencing using the latest in evidence-based practices combined with powerful progress reporting.
Serving thousands of students in public, charter and virtual schools across the U.S. and globally, PresenceLearning has shown that online delivery of special education related services is practical, convenient and highly effective.
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Kati Elliott, +1 (410) 975-9638, [email protected]
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