Experiences of Speech-Language Therapists Providing Teletherapy to Preschoolers during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Confinement, as a sanitary measure due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has forced school systems around the world to adapt their lessons to the virtual modality. Speech-language therapists working with preschool children who present language disorders have had to modify their usual work methodology to achieve their therapeutic and educational goals. This research sought to describe the perception speech-language therapists had of their experience providing telerehabilitation to preschool children with developmental language disorder during the pandemic. The study design was qualitative with a phenomenological approach. The sample was made up of 10 female speech-language therapists, recruited through convenience sampling, who were interviewed using semi-structured interviews. The data were analyzed phenomenologically, obtaining subcodes, codes, and categories manually. The following thematic categories emerged from the analysis: evaluation of the experience, effectiveness of the virtual intervention, session preparation, and parental participation. The experiences shared during the interviews allowed us to detect critical elements related to the improvised and sudden modality change, the lack of training and/or preparation of the therapists to implement telepractice, resource administration, and a perception of ineffectiveness regarding the intervention. Although virtual interventions have been established as an alternative to in-person intervention, it is concluded that it was not widely accepted among the speech-language therapists interviewed in this research, who deemed this modality demanding and ineffective for such young children. We emphasize the importance of parental and/or caregiver commitment to achieve success during the process of teletherapy.