When I first started working as a speech-language pathologist in 2010, I felt so lucky to have landed my dream job as a full-time clinician on a cleft palate team.
School speech therapy caseloads are overloaded, making it hard for kids with cleft to access enough speech therapy
One reason why kids with cleft palate don’t get enough speech therapy is because schools are short staffed when it comes to their speech-language pathologists’ time compared to the kids’ needs.
This creates challenges with getting enough face to face time with the school speech pathologist.
Because speech and communication are so important for academic success, public schools are required to offer speech therapy services, and school based speech is most kids’ main source of therapy.
Private practice cleft speech therapy may be too expensive to access
Private speech services are another option for families, but access to these private services can be challenging too.
Insurance coverage for speech therapy varies, and there aren’t enough speech pathologists in private clinics either.
How can technology help improve access to speech therapy for kids with cleft palate?
I think what I realized in witnessing all these challenges families were experiencing is that my expertise, and the expertise of my coworkers and team members, only stretches as far as our physical reach.
By that, I mean that in all of these stories, there are families and professionals working double time to solve an access problem.
Conclusion
If we can reduce the amount of direct time kids need with a speech pathologist, while also increasing how frequently they’re able to get in quality speech practice time, we can help kids make faster progress at lower costs.