Speak Out April 2021

this may misinform clients about the nature of, and evidence regarding, those interventions. Describing sessions and invoicing If speech pathologists are offering services other than speech pathology this needs to be reflected in how the session is described and invoiced,

i.e. it is inappropriate to include non speech pathology services within a session invoiced as speech pathology. Failing to clearly define and differentiate speech pathology and non-speech pathology services on invoices could result in legal action or repayment of fees charged.

Case study 1: Kids yoga classes

You decide you want to offer something a little different in addition to speech pathology services to help make your business stand out from other businesses. Several of your team members have an interest in yoga and you hear of an upcoming kids yoga training course. You decide that it would be fun to offer kids yoga classes alongside your speech pathology services. You consider framing it to parents as an opportunity to help their child to develop their social communication skills and ability to listen to and follow instructions. You would like to start bringing your pet into the clinic, they got used to you being around while you were working from home, and now they are struggling to separate from you. You look into the definition of therapy animals and decide that you could bring them into the sessions as their presence will help regulate the emotions of the clients, and improve their social skills. The International Society for Animal Assisted Therapy definition is: "Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT) is a goal oriented, planned and structured therapeutic intervention directed and/ or delivered by health, education and human service professionals. Intervention progress is measured and included in professional documentation. AAT is delivered and/or directed by a formally trained (with active licensure, degree or equivalent) professional with expertise within the scope of the professionals’ practice. AAT focuses on enhancing physical, cognitive, behavioural and/ or socio-emotional functioning of the particular human recipient." A trained therapy animal may participate in a range of interventions in order to achieve a desired outcome. Before getting approval Case study 2: Therapy animals

It is important to distinguish the difference to your clients about what is a service you offer and what is an evidence-based intervention such as speech pathology. In this instance, kids yoga is the activity, it is not an evidence-based practice for supporting children to develop social skills or an ability to listen to or follow instructions. Therefore it cannot be advertised or promoted as a "therapy" service and needs to stand alone as an additional service to speech pathology services. for therapy use, both the animal and the handler need to undergo various checks and certifications. Both the animal and the handler require training in intervention approaches and these must then be delivered alongside other health intervention approaches in order to be clinically effective. Bringing your pet to work without careful selection and training of both the pet and you as the handler does not satisfy the definition of a therapy animal. Speech Pathology Australia's position is that AAT is not within scope of practice for a speech pathologist. Speech pathologists may undertake training to provide AAT, which woud then be considered to be a service separate to speech pathology. Furthermore, even if you and the animal have completed the considerable training necessary to call your pet a therapy animal, there needs to be consideration of whether having a therapy animal in your session adds therapeutic value for your client. If it does, and if your service addresses speech pathology goals and intervention, then the service provided may be considered to be speech pathology. The therapy animal in this scenario is only functioning as an activity/stimulus to facilitate your session.

Ethics

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April 2021 | Speak Out