Boosting Success for Your Child’s Back-to-School Experience: Learn the Advantages of Virtual Speech Therapy

Summer is winding down and school will be starting up again soon.  The start of the school year can come with increased anxiety for students who face speech and communication challenges, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD), stuttering or other challenges.

If your child is dealing with these issues, Great Speech is here to help!  Our speech therapists are available to support your youngster and alleviate some of that stress and anxiety.  Now is the time to help your child reach their speech and communication goals.

How Speech Therapy Can Help Children Transitioning Back to School

• For Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): Speech therapy can help children with ASD to improve their communication skills, including speech articulation, vocabulary and language comprehension. This can enhance their ability to express their needs, wants and emotions effectively. Speech therapy can focus on teaching children with ASD social communication skills that will help them excel in social settings such as a school or playgroup. Improved communication skills can lead to a reduction in frustration and challenging behaviors allowing them to engage in more meaningful conversations with others.

• For Children with Stuttering: Speech therapy can help children with stuttering achieve greater fluency in their speech, reducing instances of stuttering and improving overall communication. As children experience progress in their speech fluency, their confidence and self-esteem often improve, leading to more willingness to communicate in various situations, such as school. Speech therapists can teach children various techniques and strategies to manage moments of stuttering, such as easy onset of speech, breathing exercises, and pausing techniques.

• For Children with Other Communication Challenges: Speech therapy can target speech sound disorders and articulation issues, helping children produce speech sounds correctly and more intelligibly. Speech therapy can work on developing appropriate communication skills for different social contexts.
• Improved communication skills can positively impact academic performance and social interaction – in sports and in the classroom, as children can better participate in all activities and engage with their peers and teachers.

Positive Aspects of Virtual Speech Therapy for Children Returning to School

Great Speech’s virtual speech therapy model offers numerous benefits for children returning to school. These advantages include:

• Accessibility and Convenience: Online speech therapy eliminates the need for physical travel, making it more accessible to a broader range of children. Children can receive therapy from the comfort of their homes, schools or anywhere with an internet connection, reducing logistical challenges for busy parents.

• Flexibility: The Great Speech network of 200+ licensed speech and language pathologists (SLPs) have wide availability including weekends and evenings to accommodate any scheduling or geographical restraint individuals may face.

• Personalized Learning: Great Speech uses a patient matching algorithm that matches individuals to an SLP that is tailored to their specific communication needs and goals. This helps accelerate care and individuals can potentially reach their communication goals in a shorter period of time.

• Reduced Stigma: For some children, attending speech therapy in person might be intimidating or may lead to feelings of being different from their peers. Online speech therapy can offer a more discreet and less stigmatizing option, which can improve the child’s overall experience and confidence.

• Continuity of Care: The Great Speech model of synchronous sessions with and SLP and asynchronous ‘homework’ keeps children engaged and working towards their goals even when not meeting face to face.
• Cost-Effective: Virtual speech therapy can be more cost-effective for families as it reduces transportation expenses and allows therapists to reach clients efficiently. Virtual speech therapy also can help maximize your health insurance. If your employer offers an HSA or FSA account, these are pre-tax dollars that allow a tax deduction for covered medical expenses. Such expenses then, in effect, lower healthcare costs.

If you have a child heading back to school who is experiencing communication challenges, get started by scheduling an introductory call today.