The Department of Education and Training (DET) initiative has seen a Townsville-based speech pathologist meet with rural children via web conferencing programs Skype, iConnect and Telehealth since May this year.

The trial enabled schools including Richmond, Normanton and Cloncurry state schools to access speech language therapy on a much more frequent basis, as much as twice a week, according to newly elected Queensland ICPA president Kim Hughes.

The president said while face-to-face therapy was ideal, online service delivery could provide a much-needed supplement.

“Because the demand for speech therapy is phenomenal – not just in remote schools, in metropolitan too,” Ms Hughes said.

“But the difference is with kids in rural and remote areas is they don’t have access to private providers so they have to rely on the public system if they don’t want to travel hundreds of kilometres.”

Ms Hughes said the issue users are finding with the delivery model is that it required “a lot of bandwidth and when you’re going from say Townsville to Mount Isa using iConnect, it’s not as reliable”.

She said the DET were conducting the telepractice trial in the North West with view to extend across all of Queensland where face-to-face speech therapy is not readily available and a better understanding of the results should be had by the end of Term 4.

The DET’s decision to extend the trial for another six months, due to complete early next year, was recognised with a motion passed to thank the department.