Teleparticipation in a Group Stuttering Treatment Program: Perspectives of Clients and Student Speech-Language Pathologists

AbstractBackground and PurposeTelepractice is now a common method for delivering stuttering treatment. To date reports of telepractice used in treating adults who stutter have focused on treatment provided to individuals (e.g., O’Brian et al., 2008; Carey et al., 2010) in individual treatment programs. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of adults who stutter and student speech-language pathologists who participated in a 3 week intensive stuttering treatment program in which one client participated through telepractice. This report focuses on the comparison of off-site to on-site experiences of all participants.MethodParticipants were Sarah who participated through telepractice in the acquisition phase of the Comprehensive Stuttering Program (CSP) program, her three fellow on-site adult clients (2 males and 1 female), and 2 student speech-language pathologists. In telepractice sessions, Jackie participated in group fluency skill practice sessions, group discussions that address the attitudinal and emotional consequences of stuttering, and less structured group conversations with fellow clients. Qualitative data were obtained from semi-structured interviews with clients and student trainees at the end of the treatment program.ResultsJackie found the on-site delivered therapy superior to telepractice delivered therapy; however, she was surprised that the telepractice delivered therapy worked as well as it did. Fellow clients also thought that the in-person interaction was superior, but, in agreement with Jackie and student trainees, thought that telepractice therapy was “better than no therapy at all”. Based on challenges in the telepractice delivered treatment, all participants provided recommendations for future use of telepractice in a group therapy and clinical education programs. Themes will be detailed in the poster.DiscussionThemes and recommendations provide new information about telepractice in group treatment programs from the perspective of clients and new information about clinical education in telepractice delivered stuttering treatment from the perspective of student trainees