Preschool Speech - Teletherapy
July 23, 2020
Welcome to my first Blog! I’m a list maker and not so much a writer. But…I am going to give it a shot. With technology today may be able to pull it off! I have this yearning to share my “out of the box” techniques which have produced successful progress over the years. I have decided to name my new Blog Ricki's Reflection. Now that I am semi-retired (transitioning from 5 days a week for 44 years including summers to 2 days a week!) I am going to be reflecting on all the strategies and susggestions I have implemented over the years. My very first job was working in a pilot special ed preschool program in 1976. I had 36 students on my caseload. Today I was thinking of a little boy in that program whose name was David. Reflecting back he had classic CAS. I had worked with him for 3 years. That was when I started creating some of my first books (CV-CVCV Apraxia Kit and VC-CVC Apraxia Kit) that I now sell on TPT. So I went on Facebook and looked him up - yes - I remembered his name after 43 years and I think I found him!! Now I have to get up the nerve and send him a message. So getting back to Teletherapy….I love it! In March I had to teach myself this new type of therapy for me. I must have watched 10 webiners included having to redo the Zoom webinars at least 3 times before it finally sunk in!! So I thought I would start with Teletherapy tips for the parents. I email this handout to my preschool parents (it’s geared towards younger children) and review it with them. There are four sheets: Teletherapy speech tips, Be a good speech model, Teachable moments, and Remember to. My preschool moms are SUPERMOMS! They deal with the behavior and they have figured out how to engage with their child. But…..not every session is going to be perfect. Today I had a child who said “No-Stop” to everything we did - and I had his favorites in front of the screen! Sometimes nothing works with the little ones and that’s ok. I was able to get at least 15 minutes in and spent the other 15 minutes reviewing progress using checklists.
Honestly with the older students teletherapy was much easier since the whole school was doing Zoom classes. On occasion I had to review posture, foul language, manners, keeping camera and audio on and lighting.
