Unlocking Speech Success: A Case Study on SpeakSuite's Impact

Name: John Stark 

Meet John, a customer of SpeakSuite and a speech-language pathologist (SLP) with 32 years of experience. His practice is in Timmons, Northern Ontario where he runs a private clinic with six staff members, three SLPs, and three assistants. John’s practice supports hundreds of students, and 24 schools. His team primarily works with school-age children focusing on language cases. They also address articulation cases as needed.

Challenges Faced: The client's practice encountered several challenges before implementing SpeakSuite:

• Resource Limitations: Limited financial resources constrained the practice's ability to meet the needs of the growing caseload.
• Lack of Continuity: Due to caseload constraints, some children experienced long gaps between therapy sessions, leading to regression.
• Severe Cases: Children with complex needs, such as dyspraxia and severe phonological impairments, required more intensive and continuous therapy.

Implementation of SpeakSuite

John discovered SpeakSuite (formerly TikTalk) and was drawn to its user-friendly interface, ease of access, and continuity of practice. The primary motivation was to bridge the gap where children could not receive consistent support due to limited resources, some students waiting as long as nine months between sessions.  SpeakSuite allowed children to practice daily and even during the therapist's absence, ensuring continuity of care with remote monitoring. 

Impact on Therapy:

The client found that the simplicity and play-based approach of SpeakSuite motivated children to consistently use the app, and practice their speech sounds. Children showed enthusiasm for using the software and expressed having fun during practice sessions. SpeaksSuite facilitated the tracking of children's progress in speech development and provided opportunities for adjustments based on their performance. The ability to remotely monitor speech production was invaluable, especially in geographically challenging locations where personal visits were infrequent. 

Feedback from School Staff and Parents:

School staff expressed their eagerness to continue using SpeakSuite based on their observations of speech progress with their students. Parents found the application engaging and an extremely valuable tool for at-home practice. One parent even shared that their child's face lights up when they use SpeakSuite. Not only did parents and school staff boast about the incremental progress the students were making, they also reported student’s genuinely enjoying playing with the app.

• User-Friendly Portal: An easy-to-use portal for SLPs to set up clients, select target phonemes, and adjust difficulty levels.
• Remote Monitoring: The recording feature allowed SLPs to remotely monitor a child's speech progress through audio and video samples.
• Customization: The flexibility to customize the balance between play and practice time to cater to the child's attention level.

Future Looking

John plans to introduce SpeakSuite to more children and schools, after seeing the meaningful impact it had on his practice. The client’s staff members will be encouraged to use SpeakSuite to streamline their speech therapy, with the intention of supporting more students and helping them achieve their goals more quickly. 

John believes that SpeakSuite has emerged as an invaluable tool in addressing the challenges faced by the speech therapy practice. With its user-friendly design, remote monitoring capabilities, and flexibility in practice, it holds the potential to transform speech therapy for children with various speech difficulties. As the practice continues to expand its usage of SpeakSuite, it expects to see even more children benefit from the software's engaging and effective approach to support speech therapy.