How to succeed as a tele-therapist.

Annie Mork is a tele-speech therapist located in Denver, CO. She has worked in a variety of settings: schools, outpatient pediatric, travel therapy, and now teletherapy. Through her experiences she realized therapists need a better option to find job openings and thus started Jobs For Therapists. JFT is your one-stop destination to find jobs for speech therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, and psychologists. You can reach out to Annie at jobsfortherapists@gmail.com.



Written by: Annie Mork, MA CCC-SLP

After my initial introduction to virtual speech therapy in 2020 (like many of us) I swore off teletherapy. It was frustrating, clunky, kids would close the laptop if they didn’t want to participate, internet quality could be super poor, and I felt disengaged with my work. To me, there was nothing better than a good board game, artic cards, and time spent together in person working on a kiddo’s goals.

Fast forward to 2022, my husband started working remotely and I was tired of my morning commute. We had just moved from Dallas where my commute could be anywhere from 30-45 minutes on a given day, one way. I was missing out on time at home, and so, I thought I would give teletherapy another try.

Long story short, it was a success and I love it. Here are my top tips to thrive as a tele-speech therapist:

Get a second monitor.

This will make your report writing, testing, and document tracking so much easier if you can easily have everything you need on one screen and the kiddo working on the second screen!

Have a work from home buddy.

For me this is my husband, but I found during the pandemic, as the only one working from home, it started to feel very isolating. It’s so fun being able to talk about my day or eat lunch with someone. I find speech therapists are naturally social creatures so having a built in social system during the work day makes a huge difference.

Stretch breaks.

I was used to walking around a school, sitting on the ground with kids, sitting in those tiny kindergarten chairs (that will stretch your hips for sure!), or getting to play a quick game out at recess throughout my day. Now, I could probably sit for 8 hours straight and stay busy the entire time. I find my shoulders and legs get super tight and this can lead to headaches and just an overall achy body. 

Bonus tip: get a standing desk to help with this!

Schedule breaks throughout your day.

This can be just 5 minutes between kids, but this will allow you to go to the bathroom, get some water/a snack, stretch, look away from your screen, etc. which will give your brain a break and keep you feeling charged!

Use good apps!

I cannot stress this enough! A good app such as Smarty Ears Learning or Ultimate SLP can make a world of a difference. I have also had big success using PowerPoint with gifs–sounds silly but kids LOVE gifs and it gets them talking! Kids are already pretty good with technology so when you can use an app that’s easy to use but also helps them meet their goals, it’s a win-win!