This is not a post designed for artistic eloquence, but rather one where I am speaking as a mother directly from my heart to the Arizona State Division of Developmental Disabilities, Governor Ducey, and all those responsible for funding disabilities services in this state. Whatever else we choose to leave behind from the emergency phase of the pandemic, teletherapy needs to stay.
This is not something I say as a person who enjoys making sure teletherapy works as effectively as possible. My son hates teletherapy. Doing this with him isn’t easy for me, in fact it’s far more unpleasant than assisting therapists with in-person services. He doesn’t have the joint attention or generalized cooperation skills that would be required for these sessions to go more smoothly. I’ve put together some photos of just a few of the types of challenges I can encounter every session (and believe me, as many as I have here, it’s nowhere near exhaustive or all inclusive) so that you might better understand why I would say that. Most of them will be following the text of this post, and parts of the photos have been marked out a bit as our son often refuses to keep anything but his underwear on for these sessions since they are happening in home. The pictures are from music therapy sessions, as next week’s post is going to focus on what we’ve been doing for NMT in theletherapy this past year.
In fact, none of Tony’s current therapy team would ever tell you that the best outcomes can be achieved with him doing teletherapy, which is why we are so excited to be able to head back into clinic at NMTSA with our son next month for his music therapy. But, sometimes parents of individuals with developmental disabilities can’t find therapists for services local to them. And, without teletherapy, they have to give up what little free time they have (if they even have any to begin with) to research a specialty they didn’t go school for so that they can step in and try to provide some approximation of those type of services themselves, or what is probably a pretty common outcome is that the disabled individual goes entirely without that type of therapy. This loss of therapies can lead to decreased quality of life for everybody involved, decreased overall skills, and increased costs as individuals then may ultimately require assistance for skills they might have otherwise gained some independence on with therapeutic supports.
We personally have had periods where we couldn’t find a speech therapist or a physical therapist for our son. And, even though I prefer in-person services, I would have been grateful for teletherapy support from someone who studied and is licensed in these areas.
When our son was first entering therapy, his sensory issues and anxiety of others was so bad, he screamed for entire sessions and wouldn’t let therapists even get near him. His first occupational therapist, Miss Dee, would call out instructions to me over his screaming and I would implement the therapeutic interventions either in clinic or often at home after he had calmed down. This was necessary to move him forward. Even if it might be better to have in-home or in-person services, when none are available, having the option to find a therapist who can do teletherapy services from a distance allows the parents and that individual access to necessary guidance in providing therapeutic supports.
As agencies decide what types of practices they want to abandon or continue with going forward, as a parent of a disabled individual within this community, I am asking each of you to see what is often an unmet need for our families in this community. Teletherapy needs to stay an option to meet that need.
