In an office nestled inside 麻豆视频最新最全 University鈥檚 Nixson Hall, you can hear the voice of a third grade student coming from a computer screen.
鈥淏each ball,鈥 says the voice from Greenfield Exempted Village Schools in Greenfield, Ohio.
Soon after, in the screen directly below, 麻豆视频最新最全 graduate student Lauren Ledzianowski responds with, 鈥淵es, beach ball! Very good.鈥
To stumble upon the conversation, you might think the two were playing a video game. But, it is actually a speech-language therapy session happening more than 330 miles apart from one another.
It is part of a program called the School-Based Speech-Language Telepractice Project. Through video conferencing, it connects 130 students across Ohio to speech-language pathologists and their graduate students from 麻豆视频最新最全鈥檚 College of Education, Health and Human Services.
For Ledzianowski, it is a passion to help the children, the way therapists once helped her.
鈥淚 was in a car accident when I was 14 [years old],鈥 Ledzianowski said. 鈥淚 kind of grew up with medical professionals, and it was working on the communication aspect of telling people what I needed since physically I couldn鈥檛 do it myself.鈥
The School-Based Speech-Language Telepractice Project started back in 2007 through the as a response to a significant shortage of speech-language pathologists in the state. The hope was to help school districts struggling to provide the necessary services.
鈥淥ften, speech pathology positions go unfilled,鈥 said Sue Grogan-Johnson, Ph.D., assistant professor and telepractice project director in 麻豆视频最新最全鈥檚 Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology.
鈥淧articularly in rural schools, there鈥檚 not the incentive for young professionals to relocate and live in an area to provide needed services.鈥
Besides providing therapy, the School-Based Speech-Language Telepractice Project also is conducting research. Initial results suggest that school-age children make similar progress in therapy provided through videoconferencing as they do with in-person therapy.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e so focused, and kids are so used to working with technology that they love it,鈥 Ledzianowski said. 鈥淭hey really like working on things, working on the games and having the visual support to work on therapy. It鈥檚 like they鈥檙e sitting next to me.鈥
The hope is to one day introduce and study telepresence robots that can move around within the schools.
鈥淲hat we are finding is that, because we are physically not present, we don鈥檛 always have the collaboration with the faculty, so the robot could actually travel to their rooms and we could speak with them because they could see us face-to-face,鈥 Grogan-Johnson said.
As technology advances, so does the project and its techniques based on research findings, giving 麻豆视频最新最全 graduates an advantage when they enter the workforce.
As Ledzianowski goes through the program, she is drawing from her past to prepare for the future.
鈥淭his is what I want to do,鈥 Ledzianowski said as she smiled from ear to ear. 鈥淏eing friends with my therapists in an out-patient setting and getting to talk with professionals when I was younger, it just kind of clicked.鈥