Last fall, Jenn Putney, Tim Worthen, E. Crossley Wagner, and Cortney Sullivan, graduate students in the Communication Sciences and Disorders program, chose to do a pilot research project on the receptiveness of speech-language pathologists (SLP) to use telepractice. Little did they know that the COVID-19 pandemic would make their research extremely relevant.
This semester, Jenn Putney and Tim Worthen, led by Dr. Alison King, decided to expand their research. After just four days, they have collected data from over 660 SLPs from 48 states and the District of Columbia with participants’ ages ranging from 21-71. Tim Worthen stated, “It’s been really exciting. We kind of went viral on Instagram in the SLP world. Two very large accounts thought what we were doing was amazing and shared our posts. Yesterday we had someone ask to highlight our work at the national convention this fall for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.” The research team is continuing to collect data for another few weeks and is hoping to get more than 1,000 participants.
The research team has been fascinated, and a little worried about what they are finding. Jenn Putney summed up the preliminary results by saying, “Our current study has found that 98% of SLPs were never given the opportunity to engage in telepractice with their clients while in graduate school. As SLPs have reported on our survey feelings of anxiety, lack of preparation, frustration, and inexperience when introduced to telepractice, it is evident that training in telepractice for service delivery is crucial to the graduate program and certification in the field.” The research team hopes that this study can help bring awareness to the training that is needed for future SLPs and encourage graduate programs around the country to add telepractice into their curriculum.
If you have any questions about the research please feel free to reach out to Dr. Alison King. kingar2@longwood.edu