Telepractice Materials: Learning to Make Your Own

Providing teletherapy comes with many challenges and many rewards. As I have stated before, telepractice is not for wimps. If you are a school SLP, you are already versed in clawing your way over walls and finding ways to solve seemingly impossible or unreasonable problems. Sad but true. School SLP’s are problem solvers. Wall climbers. Public relations specialists. Sometimes it feels like we have to fight our way to be able to work with our students. Again, sad but true. Teletherapy is a service provision model that exercises all of these skills. As you transition or begin to regularly include telepractice services as part of your new normal, you may end up falling in love with the experience. Or not. Either way, you will grow your expertise and push yourself in new ways. It can be especially exhausting at first—both mentally and physically. It took me a full three years to cross the Rubicon to arrive at a place where I consider myself a teletherapist. I am confident I will never return to face-to-face therapy.

Making engaging activities is also a skill that most SLP’s already have in their tool box. Transferring that talent to telepractice is an important confidence builder, especially at the beginning. Knowing your students and understanding how your platform works go hand-in-hand with learning to make some of your own basic materials. And honestly, activities don’t have to be fancy. I relied heavily on TPT and still do. I typically purchase materials from TPT and Boom Cards from teletherapists who understand various platforms and how their products are used in a virtual environment. That said, just like with face-to-face therapy, I found I still needed to make customized activities and materials for certain students or groups. The most important tool I rely on to make activities is Power Point. If you don’t have Power Point, use Google Slides. I make customized game boards and slide shows using these two tools. I also use Adobe Acrobat Reader. I tend to make my own activities and games because it gives me the control to increase or decrease student interactivity based on their responses and behavior. And yes, behavior management in the teletherapy room can be a big deal.