WebPT Blog - speech-language pathologists
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0 CommentsMay 1, 2013| Brooke Andrus
May is finally here, and that makes all of us here at WebPT super stoked. Why? Well, the sun is shining, the flowers are blooming, the birds are singing, and of course, it’s Better Hearing and Speech Month!
The tradition of Better Hearing and Speech Month began more than 75 years ago as a way to shed light on the many forms of communication disorders and impairments affecting human hearing, speech, language, and voice. The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders estimates that approximately 43 million people in the United States live with some kind of speech, voice, language, or hearing impairment.
Here are a few more figures to consider:
- About two to three out of every 1,000 children in the US are born deaf or hard-of-hearing. Nine out of every ten children who are born deaf have parents with normal hearing function.
- More than three million Americans stutter, with the highest incidence occurring among boys ages two through six.
- An estimated one million people in the US have aphasia, a language disorder resulting from post-stroke brain damage.
- Approximately 36 million American adults report some degree of hearing loss, yet only one out of five people who could benefit from a hearing aid actually uses one.
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Jun 21, 2012| Charlotte Bohnett
Today’s blog post comes from Jeremy Legaspi, a speech language pathologist at UPWARD in Phoenix, Arizona. Follow Jeremy on Twitter @AZspeechguy or visit azspeechguy.wordpress.com.
As a pediatric SLP, I’m always looking for new ways to interact with my patients and incorporate fun into my treatment plans. The iPad is awesome because I can use it for documentation and office purposes as well as for treatment. As a big iPad fan, I have about 500 apps. Here are the top five applications I use most frequently with my pediatric patients.
1.) Custom Boards
One of About.com’s "Best App for Special Needs of 2012,” Custom Boards Premium is an evidence-based app that allows you to use or create activity boards for children needing symbols to communicate and learn. Boasting over 11,000 built-in symbols from the Smarty Symbols library as well as the ability to add your own photos, Custom Boards allows you to select from a pool of templates in six areas: Devices & Switches, Grids & Boards, Schedules, Activities, Signs, and Labels & Worksheets.
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May 11, 2012| Mike Mannheimer
In honor of Better Speech and Hearing Month, we’ve launched our new Speech Language Pathology Documentation Module developed with some seriously stellar input from our Speech-Language Pathologist Members. (Thanks, SLPs!)
This new module is available now for all Members. And it’s free.
Enhancements
- New entry fields in the Subjective section include:
- Cognition
- Oral-Motor Issues
- Vocal Quality
- Behavioral Issues
- Medical History: Cleft Palate, Tracheotomy, and Recurrent Pneumonia
- New entry fields in the Objective section include:
- P.O. Intake Evaluation Tests
- Stage of Swallowing Tests
- Language Expression
- Speech Intelligibility
- Evidence-based tests from the ASHA National Outcomes Measurement System
Additional Perks
Are you a Pediatric Speech Language Pathologist? Great news! We integrated the SLP Documentation Module with our existing Pediatrics Module so you can easily work within a combined SLP/Pediatrics Documentation Profile.
And while we were at it, we introduced improvements to WebPT Billing and made our Idea Portal even easier to use.
So take a moment, hop onto your WebPT, and peruse these enhancements. We’d love to hear what you think.
Got other ideas on how to make WebPT more awesome? Tell us! Drop us a line at support@webpt.com; submit a ticket by clicking "Help" in the application; or visit our Idea Portal.
- New entry fields in the Subjective section include:
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May 3, 2012| Lindsay Bayuk
Thanks to Marissa for sharing this innovative use of technology for therapy with us today! Marissa A. Barrera, MS, MPhil, MSCS, TSHH, CCC-SLP is the owner of New York Neurogenic Speech-Language Pathology, P.C., a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) and Professor of Acquired Motor Speech & Swallowing Disorders. With private practices located in Midtown and on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Marissa and her team of SLPs feel privileged to provide therapeutic services to hundreds of patients each year. A graduate of Columbia University, she has earned an MS, MPhil, and a Multiple Sclerosis Certified Specialist certification (MSCS) while working towards her PhD in Neurolinguistics (language science). In short, Marissa is proud to be a part of the WebPT community and hopes to help you foster optimal speech and language development in your patients! www.nyneuroslp.comIn honor of this month in which Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) all over the country join together to spread the word of awareness, I thought it would be appropriate to share with you a way for you to grow your practice, help more individuals in need, all the while reducing your practice’s operation costs.
Living in a world where companies are no longer confined to conducting business within a local radius, globalization affords businesses the opportunity to work without boundaries. Although historically Speech-Language Pathologists have always treated their patients within an arm’s reach, in this modern, global market we now too have the opportunity to help patients well outside of our immediate geographic area.
To own a speech-language pathology private practice in the past meant you had to feverishly market yourself to local doctors, psychologists, social workers, PTs, OTs, schools and neighborhood families. In the event that there were multiple practices within close proximity, you had to work twice as hard just in order to maintain a presence in the local market. If the practice model I’ve just described sounds like YOUR current business, then perhaps it is time for you to branch out and consider providing web-based speech and language therapy. If you are tired of participating in the referral rat race, wanting to expand your revenue sources, and are genuinely interested in helping as many individuals as possible, I encourage you to take a moment to peruse the basic facts and some unique benefits to administering web-based therapy.
