Internet Therapy Services from A Total Approach Bring a Wealth of Opportunity for Families

By Maude Le Roux, OTR/L, SIPT, RCTC, DIR® Expert Trainer at A Total Approach 

The outbreak of COVID-19 has certainly impacted our lives in many ways. 

We are all social distancing, staying at home and working remotely while many families also are juggling scheduled learning events and the needs of each child for a whole new way of going to school. 

Many of us also are concerned for our financial futures and anxious about the dangers this novel coronavirus can inflict daily on our lives. 

Yes, lockdown is certainly not a “fun” situation. 

Yet we also are hearing stories about families getting closer, connecting more deeply for the first time in a long time. One parent tells me their family started a vacation board to plan all the trips they want to take once “this” is all over. 

It seems families are dreaming together again, a happy consequence of an otherwise anxious and uncertain time 

Now Is the Best Time to Continue Therapy

While the transition to staying at home may be rough, families may enjoy many real-life benefits from the opportunity to continue their occupational therapy and speech language therapy virtually. 

At A Total Approach, we offer online therapy services to support and ease your family’s situation at home, enabling little ones and students under our care to translate what they learn from us into their daily lives. 

In the past weeks, we have heard from families who tell us:

• “It is too difficult to juggle everyone’s schedule and include time for therapy.”
• “I do not think I can manage my child’s therapy at home. He needs the equipment at your center.”
• “My child will not listen to me and attend to the computer at the same time.”
• “The future is too uncertain to really think about therapy right now.” 

At the same time, the following is also true:

• Figuring out ways to get daily chores completed while adapting to your child’s sensory systems may be a high priority for you right now.
• Your child’s sensory systems need to adapt to a “new normal,” which may affect their behavior in a different way than before.
• Spending more time with family gives you a chance to observe and get to know different adaptive aspects of your child’s function.
• Your child’s progress will benefit from personalized home programs that target their sensory, social or academic needs.
• Sharing a Floortime session with your child every day truly can support your relationship.

Advantages of Online Therapy

Many therapists believe online therapy services are the new frontier of medicine, although doctors have been using telehealth in the United States since the 1990s and consider it highly effective. 

Telehealth, also known as online therapy, e-therapy and virtual therapy, is defined as “the online delivery of speech, occupational and mental health therapy services via high-resolution, live video conferencing.” 

The benefits of online therapy for clients include increased access to different types of therapies and greater flexibility in scheduling sessions from a safe, private environment: your own home. 

Research also finds people who participate in telehealth are more likely to seek out face-to-face therapy as a result of their positive experience. 

Our Unique and Specialized Approach at Home

Our therapists have been conducting virtual consultations, assessments and therapy sessions for almost 20 years, working with clients who live out of state and around the world, so we are well equipped to support you in the following ways: 

• If you are a current client, you can continue working with your therapist online.
• If you are a new client, you can consult online with Maude Le Roux or Angela Gaudiuso Johnson, and they will assign a therapist to your case based on your needs.
• If you need an assessment or re-assessment of occupational and speech function, we accomplish this virtually and/or with video.
• If your family needs training to support your child at home, we provide targeted home programs designed for this purpose.
• If you need flexibility in your virtual therapy schedule, we can conduct weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly sessions.
• If you and your child are working with our intensive programs such as Tomatis Sound Therapy, Interactive Metronome, ReadLS or others, they can be delivered right in your home.

Our Take-Home Message

Our wish is for all our families and staff to stay safe, to be there for each other and hopefully to be back in the familiar swing of things sooner rather than later. 

Even as we acknowledge that virtual therapy is not for everyone, it may become “the new normal” for many clients in the many months to come—not as another burden but as an ally in difficult times. 

We truly believe the time is now for families to consider online therapy sessions to continue or to start creating positive, impactful change in your lives, even as we hope to re-open our center at the first opportunity.

Learn More About Online Therapy Sessions

If you’d like to learn more about online therapy sessions, please contact angela@atotalapproach.com, who can support you with information on virtual consultations, assessments and/or therapy sessions.