MIDLAND, Texas — Just because the world has stopped in a lot of ways, that doesn't mean a child's development has stopped.
In fact, they're still getting older everyday.
And some children rely heavily on consistent visits with a speech language pathologist or a board certified behavior analyst to get them through the day.
"At this time so many families were cut off from that and it's really tricky for the providers in the school to get curriculum set up via telehealth. Some schools are trying to work it out, some schools, they're not able to do it and so that's where we are trying to step up and be able to provide that for them," Leanne Sherred, speech language pathologist and Expressable president said.
Expressable is an Austin-based online speech pathology service that got it's start last year.
And unlike other speech therapy services, their model hasn't changed during COVID-19.
But they have some resources to make it easy for you at home.
"Speech pathologists love making it all about what you have available to you …You don't need my fancy toys, you don't need fancy worksheets from school. You have a lot at your disposal at home. If you have shaving cream in the bathroom, let's get it out and smear it all around the table and talk about what we've got going on," Sherred said.
They're just a phone call away.
They've created a speech therapy hotline with resources for lost parents and families.
That hotline number is 512-399-0064.
Beyond this, they recommend parents work alongside their kids with their therapy and active, not passive screen time.
Expressable said they're hoping to help as many families impacted by COVID-19 as possible.
"Childhood development is the most valuable time and so we would be remiss if we let that time go by without offering everything we can to really enrich their development, support them where they need support because we're not sure how long all of this situation will last and if we let it go by without working on these things we'd be looking at a lot of lost time for kids," Sherred said.
But Expressable said if you use these tools in addition to teletherapy, that time will be far from lost.
This is where you can go to get a discount on Expressable's speech therapy services: https://www.expressable.io/lp/covid19/