It makes Joan’s day to help others use technology to improve lives.

Joan Green is a speech-language pathologist, assistive technology specialist, and the founder of Innovative Speech Therapy, a private practice based in the Washington, DC area. For decades, she has helped children, adults, families, and professionals harness technology to improve communication, literacy, learning, organization, and independence. She is especially energized by the promise of AI to reduce barriers, expand access, personalize support, and improve outcomes in ways that truly matter.

Joan has a gift for helping colleagues make sense of rapidly changing tools and discover practical, ethical ways to weave accessibility features and AI into their everyday work. She provides professional development for organizations and teams, and offers one-on-one collaborative tech brainstorming sessions with clients and colleagues around the globe. She is the author of four books on using technology to improve engagement and outcomes, offers a variety of online courses, and leads the Tech Life Inner Circle, a supportive community where professionals and families receive ongoing guidance and connection as they build confidence navigating technology to improve daily life.

Financial:
Fee / honorarium for customized technology related presentations and workshops
Fees for consultation, coaching, courses, Tech Life Inner Circle Membership and therapy as owner of Innovative Speech Therapy
Publishing royalties for authored book: Assistive Technology in Special Education: Resources to Support Literacy, Communication, and Learning Difference, 3rd Ed.

Non-financial – No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.

Artificial intelligence is rapidly shaping the digital tools that students, clients, and families already use every day. For speech-language pathologists, this creates an important opportunity, not to chase trends, but to use practical, accessible tools in ways that strengthen communication, reduce barriers, and improve meaningful outcomes. This presentation is designed for school-based and private-practice SLPs who work with school-age children, while also offering ideas that can extend to older students and adults.

This session moves beyond the hype to focus on what busy clinicians need most: simple, effective strategies that can make therapy more individualized, efficient, and impactful. Through relatable clinical scenarios and live demonstrations, participants will see how AI can support common goals in language, literacy, comprehension, expressive communication, engagement, and executive functioning. The emphasis will be on helping learners who struggle to understand spoken information, organize ideas, read complex text, express themselves clearly, or participate fully in academic and social tasks.

A central theme of the presentation is empowerment. AI can help SLPs create more personalized and motivating materials in far less time, adapt content to a client’s age, interests, and language level, simplify complex information, and increase access through supports such as text-to-speech, speech-to-text, captions, and visual supports. It can also open new possibilities for individuals whose speech is difficult for others, or for standard technology, to understand. When used thoughtfully, these tools can expand participation, support independence, and improve carryover across settings.

Ethics will be woven throughout the session in a practical, clinically relevant way. Participants will consider privacy, accuracy, human oversight, and the difference between lower-risk uses, such as generating materials, and higher-stakes uses, such as documentation or handling sensitive information. Rather than positioning AI as a replacement for clinical expertise, this session presents it as a powerful assistant that can enhance, but never replace, sound judgment and individualized care.

Attendees will leave with practical ideas they can begin using right away to make intervention more accessible, engaging, and responsive to client needs.

Participants will be able to:
● Describe lower-risk and higher-stakes applications of AI in clinical practice and identify at least three ethical guidelines governing privacy, informed consent, and human oversight across school-based and private practice settings.
● List three effective prompting strategies to generate personalized, goal-aligned therapy materials using generative AI tools for students/ clients across a range of communication and literacy goals.
● Identify at least three built-in device accessibility features and describe how each can reduce barriers for clients with communication, literacy, or cognitive-communication challenges.
● Identify at least three ways AI tools (beyond the build in accessibility features on devices) can be used to support client goals
● Describe three ways AI can be used to save SLPs time

Time-Ordered Agenda
05 minutes – Introductions and disclosures
10 minutes – An ethical framework for using AI as an SLP
20 minutes – Using AI to improve expressive communication
20 minutes – Using AI to improve receptive communication
20 minutes – Using AI to improve cognition and executive functioning
15 minutes- Moderated question and answer session

Practitioners attending live events will be asked to answer questions at the end of the course about what they learned and how they will use the information they learned in practice. Once the questions (below) are completed, participants will receive their certificate.
One practical takeaway I plan to apply from this session is __________.
Overall, how familiar were you with today’s topic before attending this webinar?
☐ Not at all familiar  ☐ Somewhat familiar  ☐ Familiar  ☐ Very familiar
After attending, how confident are you in applying at least one concept from this webinar?
☐ Not confident  ☐ Somewhat confident  ☐ Confident  ☐ Very confident
Rate your overall satisfaction with this webinar.
☐ Poor  ☐ Fair  ☐ Good  ☐ Excellent
One practical takeaway I will apply from this session is __________.

Practitioners attending recorded sessions demonstrate learning and attendance by passing a quiz with a score of 80% or greater. The quiz addresses questions from material presented throughout the course. Practitioners can retake the quiz if they do not initially obtain a score of at least 80%. For events including case studies, participants download, read, and utilize materials in order to participate.