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From: Judy
Date: 15 Oct 2009
Time: 15:17:23 -0500
Remote Name: 74.104.112.9
Dave, Thank you for taking the time to read both the article and the discussion. :) I'd like to respond with an issue that came up in my conversation with a young man who is working to create an on-line speech therapy program. He is putting alot of time and energy into what looks to be a very good quality product. But here is an issue that challenged me: immediate instrumental feedback vs emotionally sensitive, human feedback. And perhaps this should not be considered as an either/or issue. 'Digital Natives' are interacting with one another while in different physical locations, e.g. social networking websites. How does a speech therapy program in which interaction takes place online compare to one in which two or more people are in the same room and the SLP is providing feedback based on non-verbal as well as verbal messages from clients? An on-line program or other instrument based program that provides immediate feedback would be very valuable, IMHO. However, as an SLP who has reframed material based on clients' responses, I cannot get my head around a program that does not include face-to-face interaction in the same room, for one reason because stuttering has the emotional component to consider. I feel I've wasted plenty of therapy time providing inadequate human-feedback and so I do think some immediate machine-created-feedback would be an excellent tool in speech therapy. But there is the saying that perhaps it is not the therapy per se that is most influencial, but rather the client-clinician relationship. Does something like Skype really take care of this? I'm just presenting this as an interesting topic for discussion whereever ISAD discussions are held. Thank you again, Judy