The impressive progress these students made would not be possible without the support, expertise and dedication of our online speech-language pathologists (SLPs). This blog series profiles the very talented people who helped these districts achieve such high success rates.
In this Q & A, we chat with Kelly Belodeau, our SLP who works with students from Lone Pine Unified School District (USD).
“Kelly is always willing to take on a new project or task even when it is a challenge or new venture for her.” – Dara Rogoff, Kelly’s Senior Clinical Consultant (SCC)
Q: How long have you been working with PresenceLearning?
A: I began working with PresenceLearning in January 2012. My first school district assignment began that August with Lone Pine Unified School District (USD).
Q: Share a story about a student you’ve worked with online who has touched you in some way.
A: I have been working with a little girl since I started with Lone Pine USD. She was just in kindergarten at the time. She had many articulation errors and phonological substitutions in her speech, which made it very difficult to understand her. Although she worked hard and always tried her best, she was aware of her speech production issues and rarely attempted to engage in conversation. Today she is a wonderful, talkative, confident little girl that I look forward to working with every week!
Q: The school you worked with in 2013-14 achieved better results than nearly 1,000 others. Why do you think there has been so much success at that school?
A: I believe the reason we were so successful in the 2013-2014 school year has a lot to do with the Lone Pine USD administration and our paraprofessional. The children were excited to come to speech therapy and the school administration did an incredible job bridging the gaps between myself, the parents and the teachers.
Q: What attracted you to working online?
A: I was really excited to work online because I was looking for a way to work from home. This type of work allows me to do what I love and still be a part of my busy family life.
Q: What are some of the things you like best about telepractice?
A: I love the fact that all of my therapy materials, reports and data collection are online! I do not have to go and find toys or activities for therapy because everything is at my fingertips. I also love the access to all of the other SLPs and their suggestions and ideas. I send out a question or problem and I instantly receive messages from all over the country.
Kelly’s hard work with the students at Lone Pine USD has certainly paid off—thank you for all that you do, Kelly!
