Tech4Teletherapy

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a shift to remote service delivery for many children with neurodevelopmental disabilities and their families. Challenges brought about from transitioning to online services include 1) a lack of web-based therapy activities for clinicians to use that allows a level of interactivity seen with in-person therapy, and 2) relying much more heavily on caregiver reports of child’s performance. In turn, this change has greatly affected caregiver stress, and affected the child’s progress and ability to achieve clinical goals. Thus, there is a critical need for accessible and interactive resources (e.g. free, user-friendly, online) to facilitate delivery of intervention services to families. Access to evidence-based intervention services plays a critical role in optimizing long-term outcomes for the child and the family. Such resources can have implications beyond the pandemic as well, by bridging gaps in remote, rural, and northern communities in Canada that do not have access to consistent in-person services.

In response to COVID-19, we developed a platform that allows remote, synchronous therapy sessions for children with developmental disabilities.