Therapist launches new app to tackle high cost of child therapy

A Gympie occupational therapist has launched a therapy app offering hundreds of pre-recorded sessions for children with additional needs at $250 annually.

Exhausted parents of children with additional needs such as speech or social challenges have been encouraged to try a new therapy app that could save them thousands of dollars in face to face therapy, a Gympie OT and businesswoman has said.

Even setting aside the logistics of finding therapists for their children, “parents are exhausted”, Malone Therapy director and mother Janiata Malone said this week.

The Gympie-based occupational therapist has developed a child-tested application with access to “hundreds and hundreds” of pre-recorded therapy sessions, for a fraction of the cost of doing the therapy face-to-face.

The service aims to “fill the gap” of parents who are looking for children’s therapy but are “struggling financially”, with customisable content and no equipment needed besides a screen.

While in an “ideal world everyone comes into clinics”, Ms Malone said with parents feeling the pinch of rising costs and limited time, this was a “more digestible” and less “overwhelming” format.

The application will be an “easy to use” and “convenient” alternative for parents who cannot afford to fork out the money or time for in-person children’s therapy, Ms Malone said.

“You can do it between school pick-up... before dinner, on the weekend, and if you miss a session, it won’t matter,” she said.

Annual subscriptions are $250 and include a chat group with other parents on the platform.

For comparison, in-person therapy services are often in the ballpark of $150-200 an hour.

Ms Malone said when her now-20-year-old autistic daughter was little, she bought her US-made therapy DVDs, but the limited options meant holistic support through remote delivery was difficult.

The concept for an app, which is also available on a browser, came to Ms Malone about 12 months ago but it “got into action about six months ago”.

There are about 60 therapy videos currently live, and “soon to be hundreds and hundreds” with content spanning the fields of occupational therapy and speech pathology, with multiple qualified professionals.

“We’ll be constantly adding to the database.”

A Malone Therapy app session in action.

She said depending on the needs of the child, parents may need to be present during the sessions, which are short and punchy, to keep them on track.

When asked what gave Ms Malone the confidence to roll out the relatively new mode of online therapy, she said it had been tested by Gympie kids with positive feedback, and leant into promising research behind home-based therapy delivery.

Originally published as Therapist launches new app to tackle high cost of child therapy