Sippl & Ciccia (2014)

Question 1

Purpose?

Answer 1

Telepractice

• What is it?
• Who can do it?
• What is its’ efficacy?

Web-based early intervention
- Challenges 
- Telepractice evaluation tools?
- Standardization?
- Use of e-Helper 
- When to use pull-out and when to use push-in telepractice
- Treatment materials specific to telepractice
Economical considerations

Question 2

Participants?

Answer 2

“Eric”

Question 3

Materials?

Answer 3

Parents aside, no intervention with preschoolers—or any young children—will work without a strong emphasis on play and fun. I use colorful, animated PowerPoint games and slideshows in my treatment. One key resource is PBSkids.org, which features coloring pages, tic-tac-toe games, and other engaging stories and activities you can easily incorporate into telepractice. To motivate students, I often leave the last five minutes of sessions open so that students play a game from my Google desktop. The games I provide assist in the generalization of language skills in connected speech.

Also, given that children this young tend to wiggle more and enunciate less, I require that they use an “in-the-ear” headset with an attached microphone, rather than a stand-alone microphone that loses their vocalizations if they’re not close to it. By using these types of strategies, I was able to make substantial progress in Eric’s remote treatment.

After treatment, both his parents commented that they felt “included” in the intervention and empowered by knowing the treatment goals being addressed. Each session presented its own set of challenges, but we made substantial progress thanks to his parents’ help and to our scheduling flexibility.

Question 4

Results?

Answer 4

Who can do it? Licensed SLP
Efficacy? 35%-50% efficacy for 8 weeks

Challenges – challenging behavior
E-helper – anyone can be an e-helper, “supervisory” person on the other end. Ex. Assistant person she familiarizes them with the material