Duration and frequency of therapy sessions play a pivotal role in how quickly you or your child will progress in speech therapy. The more often you practice and reinforce skills, the sooner they’ll become part of everyday life – saving both time and money in the process.
First step to improving communication issues is undergoing a speech evaluation with a speech-language pathologist. They will customize an array of specialized tests specifically for you based on any issues with communication you might be having.
The 5-Minute Model
Speech sound disorders often resolve themselves during childhood; those that persist into adulthood, however, may require ongoing treatment and maintenance for years. How long speech therapy will need to continue depends upon factors like severity of disorder, patient age and other medical concerns.
Duration and frequency of speech therapy depend upon the nature and severity of an individual’s disorder, as well as his or her capacity for learning new skills. A more serious disorder could require longer sessions lasting up to 90 minutes while milder cases like phonological disorders might only need 20 or 30 minute sessions.
Research indicates that when it comes to speech therapy sessions and frequency/duration, distributed practice may be more effective than mass practice. With distributed practice, students practice short sessions throughout the day at home or school to reinforce newly learned skills – providing more consistent practice than if only practicing sessions with their SLP were scheduled – thus increasing generalization over decontextualized therapy (Gilliam et al. 2012).
Studies have also demonstrated the significance of therapy intensity as much as session frequency and duration. To optimize results, frequency and duration should be high enough to deliver therapeutic doses while being low enough to ensure retention. Jessiman (2003) performed an experiment in which two children with CAS who received two 2-time per week group therapies at their schools were compared against children receiving twice weekly individualized telepractice sessions for 60 minutes each on two separate occasions as an experimental condition versus receiving business as usual telepractice model alone – concluding they achieved significantly greater progress and moved closer toward their goals than their counterparts who received only regular 2-time per week group therapy at their schools.
As more research on the optimal treatment intensity for telepractice with this population is necessary for making informed clinical decisions, a recent RCT conducted a comparison between in-vivo exposure, virtual reality exposure, and waitlist control on speech duration with children who have SSD. Their exposure patterns showed that in-vivo was comparable to most published telepractice treatment programs intended for this population.
Online Therapy
Online speech therapy provides families with a flexible solution for treating communication disorders in both children and adults, eliminating long trips to clinics to save both time and transportation costs, while simultaneously decreasing health risks related to traveling such as COVID-19 exposure while providing opportunities for reinforcing strategies at home. Furthermore, this form of speech therapy typically costs 10-15% less than in-person sessions.
A person will attend therapy sessions depending on the severity of their disorder and goals set by their Speech-Language Pathologist. Attending more sessions will enable people to make faster progress toward meeting their goals faster and reach them earlier, as well as consistent practice outside sessions in order to reap maximum benefit from therapy.
Therapists encourage their clients to participate in regular daily practice of the strategies taught during sessions as well as through natural conversations, including repetition of target words and phrases that may aid articulation or fluency disorders. This practice can especially beneficial to these individuals.
Individuals’ availability and commitment to therapy sessions also plays a part. Individuals who can make themselves available more freely for therapy sessions, or practice at home may require less sessions than those juggling work and family lives simultaneously.
Finally, the type of therapy will have a bearing on how often someone must meet with their Speech-Language Pathologist. For instance, working on issues related to articulation and fluency often necessitates more regular sessions than improving language or pragmatic skills.
An initial evaluation with their Speech-Language Pathologist is often the best way to determine the most suitable frequency and intensity of speech therapy for either children or adults. From there, a treatment team can devise an appropriate plan and set meaningful goals over time. No matter which therapy type they pursue, all available resources must be considered when managing costs associated with treatment including insurance plans, private payment options or public assistance programs that may offer help in covering costs.
Individualized Schedules
With both school-based SLPs working in public schools and independent SLPs, there are various factors that influence how often a child receives therapy sessions and practice patterns. Anne Reed, a doctoral student in Boston University’s Farquharson Lab discusses these variables which could alter therapy sessions and practice patterns.
Variables that contribute to outcomes include session length, frequency and duration; treatment intensity (e.g., number of speech sound production trials per therapy session); form and service delivery models. Alterations to any of these parameters can have dramatic impacts on outcomes – in particular cumulative intervention intensity (e.g. 75 speech sound production trials per therapy session x two therapy sessions a week for three months = 1800 trials).
Importantly, even by holding all other variables constant, you may still see significant improvements in client performance if dosage matters! Don’t just focus on changing time or frequency of sessions; experiment with dose forms or add in extra trials at every session.
Parental Involvement
Family involvement is vital to optimizing speech therapy outcomes. Parental engagement helps children make faster progress, reduce frustration during plateaus, and cement new skills over the long run. Studies demonstrate that children whose families are highly involved tend to make progress 40-60% faster than children receiving professional treatment alone.
Parents can help their children practice speech and language skills at home by reading aloud, playing communication-focused games, reenacting scenes from everyday life to expose children to natural communication opportunities, as well as reinforcing strategies learned in therapy by seeking specific instructions from their therapist on homework activities, sharing observations about changes or challenges with improvements or challenges, setting goals together, or working to support a consistent, well-rounded learning approach in home and therapy sessions. Working closely together supports an inclusive, well-rounded approach to education, while making sure all speech and language techniques are used both at home and therapy sessions – supporting a consistent, well-rounded learning approach across both environments!
Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) can support parental engagement by encouraging them to attend sessions, demonstrating techniques during sessions, and offering handouts and activity guides that reinforce practice at home. SLPs may also help families integrate therapy into daily routines like dinnertime or grocery trips so practice is not seen as another task to add onto existing commitments; this enables SLPs to meet families where they are and provide an efficient solution than adding therapy onto an already packed schedule.
Consistent sessions provide many advantages. Constant meetings accelerate progress by eliminating frustrating plateaus and regression. Furthermore, regular attendance increases confidence while building momentum – particularly beneficial for young children who require repeated opportunities to learn new skills and practice their abilities.
SLPs can change their approach to speech therapy delivery by adopting the concept of frequency right. They can reduce stressors such as commute times and the requirement to attend appointments every week at one place, offering flexible schedules tailored specifically to individual child and family needs. They may even take advantage of advances in teletherapy technology which enables families to connect with their SLPs anytime, anywhere.
