Twenty-eighth International Conference on Learning

Abstract

COVID-19 emerged as a worldwide pandemic at the beginning of 2020. The pandemic and its impact reached the United States by early March. Once infection rates started to increase, early intervention programs, including those providing home based services, recognized that to reduce the spread of the virus, many traditional in-person services were going to be impossible due to social distancing and self-quarantine requirements. Initially, infants, toddlers, and their families were left without any services but within a few weeks of the emergency, various states, including New York, approved the use of online visits or teletherapy for Early Intervention service provision. This paper details the results of a survey of over 400 service providers regarding the use of teletherapy to deliver services to children in Early Intervention. The survey focused on how did COVID-19 stay-at home orders impacted E.I. services for young children with special needs. Sub-questions included topics such as availability of the parents, the amount of time that babies remained engaged as well as the perceived success of teletherapy as a viable option to provide service by both parent and professional. The results indicate that service providers found teletherapy to be a viable manner of providing services and could be very effective on a case by case basis.