Teletherapy: Support for Speech Therapy Home Practice

Providing home practice or home support for students with speech and language challenges is often considered part of providing high quality speech therapy services. My personal view of home practice or “speech homework” has varied over the course of my almost 30 years in the profession. I will admit that providing meaningful home practice has not been my strength. When I worked in the schools, some parents wanted daily homework and summer packets. Of those parents, there were always a few that completed the activities. Sometimes I worried that parents would end up reinforcing poor speech productions or that not completing the homework would result in a privilege being taken away. Towards the end of my time in brick-and-mortar schools, I stressed reading, sketchbooks, gardening, card and board games, cooking, crafts, play, photo albums, scrap booking, 4-H, participation in camps and group sports—activities that encouraged the need for oral communication and interaction. I encouraged parents to “name and notice” what their child was doing and tried to stress that parents can model correct productions rather than focusing on correcting their own child’s speech. That said, not one method of home practice is appropriate for all families. Some families are comfortable with activity suggestions and others want printable worksheets or specific word lists. My most recent hybrid approach to providing parents access to home practice activities is to use a shared folder in Google Drive as well as creating a website using Google Sites with an embedded Google Calendar.