PresenceLearning (www.presencelearning.com) provides live online speech therapy services to more than 20 online schools across the U.S. for their special education students.
Over the past year, PresenceLearning’s online therapy services have been adopted by a growing number of educational organizations, including dozens of traditional school districts, charter school management groups and many virtual academies such as the California Virtual Academy (CAVA), Washington Virtual Academy (WAVA) and Mosaica. PresenceLearning now delivers more than 5,000 speech therapy sessions monthly to students nationwide. In the face of continuing budget pressures and chronic shortages of speech language pathologists in many areas, educational organizations are realizing significant cost savings with PresenceLearning while also seeing better outcomes for their students.
Angie Guterres, California Virtual Academies' Provider Coordinator for Special Services struggled for years to find speech-language pathologists to serve their widely dispersed student population. “It was incredibly frustrating and expensive,” she said.
After years of difficulty, Guterres learned of PresenceLearning’s live online speech therapy services. “I found out that telepractice is both approved and proven,” she said. “It’s been fantastic. The response from our special ed teachers has been very positive. Parents and students love the therapists and the highly visual and interactive computer-based platform."
Guterres estimates that CAVA saved tens of thousands of dollars in the first year and she has expanded the program to several hundred students this year. "I would recommend it to other schools in a heartbeat. I’d say, ‘Stop what you’re doing and use PresenceLearning.’”
