Speech therapy software: sounds, fluency and the progress a family can see
Speech therapy software has to follow something a single appointment never shows: a child or an adult who is understood a little better, session after session, over months. This guide sets out what a speech and language record should hold, walks through one session and one course in OPALEVI, and says plainly which tests and scores it does not keep.
Key takeaways
- Measure the same few things at every session, intelligibility and MLU above all, so progress shows as numbers rather than impressions.
- Book the course as a course: in OPALEVI one booking holds 2 to 30 sessions, each checked against the therapist's own hours.
- Most practice happens at home: the tasks, how often, and a box to tick for each day belong on a sheet the family takes away.
- OPALEVI records what the therapist judged and typed. It scores no standardised test and compares nothing with age norms.
Signs your speech therapy notes have outgrown the exercise book
Many speech and language therapists keep one exercise book per patient: the sounds that came out wrong, a line about the session, the words sent home. That holds for one therapist. With several therapists, a waiting list and courses of twenty sessions, the cracks are predictable:
- Progress is an adjective. “Clearer than in spring” compares with nothing; a percentage judged the same way each time does.
- Last month's sound list is pages back, or lost: which sounds were left out, replaced or distorted, and where in the word.
- Home practice lives on loose paper. Nobody can find last week's tasks.
- Which session is this? Session 7 of 20 should be plain from the diary, not worked out by counting pages.
- The ENT findings sit in another folder, though vocal fold nodules or an eardrum problem shape the plan.
A course of speech therapy is judged by its direction: whether more people understand the patient now than when it began.
What a speech and language therapy record should hold
First agree on what each session must capture; the list works on paper too:
| Field | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Articulators at rest and in movement | Lips, tongue, jaw and soft palate, graded on the same steps each time. |
| Sounds in error | Which sounds, whether omitted, substituted or distorted, and where in the word. |
| Fluency and stuttering | The kind of disfluency and the clinician's own severity rating, apart from any licensed test. |
| Intelligibility | The share of words an unfamiliar listener understood, one number per session. |
| Language | Comprehension, expression and mean length of utterance. |
| Voice | Maximum phonation time and what the laryngoscopy showed. |
| Swallowing | Whether it was assessed, the diet texture agreed, and notes. |
| Session, goals and home practice | Session number and planned total, length, cooperation, objectives, tasks sent home. |
A record, not a verdict
Software should hold what the therapist heard and judged. Whether 60 % intelligibility at four is a concern is a clinical judgement about one child, not a field for a program to fill.
One speech therapy session in OPALEVI, step by step
A typical session in the Speech therapy department: a child halfway through a course for articulation. Bold words are screen labels, exactly as shown.
What the family reports
Open the session from Today or the calendar. Complaints, Examinations and Diagnoses take what the parents notice and what you observe, with saved phrases such as “Stammering” or “Speech sample taken” to pick from and edit.
Articulators and sounds
Oral-motor examination grades lips, tongue, jaw and velum for Structure and Function; an empty cell means not examined. Sounds not pronounced correctly is free text: write the sounds in your own alphabet and note whether each is left out, replaced or distorted, and where in the word.
Fluency and intelligibility
Choose the Fluency pattern and, for a patient who stutters, the Stuttering severity: the clinician's rating, as the screen says, not a standardised score. Type the Intelligibility to an unfamiliar listener as a percentage.
Language, voice and swallowing
Fill in what applies: Mean length of utterance (MLU) for a child building sentences, Maximum phonation time for a voice patient, Diet texture once Swallowing was assessed is ticked.
The session and the plan
Session no. and Out of place the patient in the course; add the Duration, Session activities and Cooperation during the session, then Objectives and Next session.
Home tasks, then finish
List the week's work under Home practice tasks, finish the session, and hand the family the sheet printed from Home programme.
Worth knowing: Session no. is typed. The calendar knows a booking is session 7 of 20, but it does not fill that box. And every new session opens empty; nothing is copied from the last one, which stays visible on the progress chart and the patient's file.
The tools: progress chart, mouth, ear and larynx maps, home sheet
Intelligibility and MLU across sessions
Under Progress across sessions, Measures across sessions draws the intelligibility and MLU typed at this patient's earlier sessions in the department, plus today's, each on its own axis. It appears once there are two measurements and plots only what was entered: no age norm, no target line, no arrow saying better or worse.
Mouth, ear and larynx
The Mouth and ear map has three views, Right eardrum (otoscopy), Left eardrum and Open mouth, the two eardrums as an otoscope shows them (the left is the right photograph mirrored) and the mouth from the front, each with its regions outlined; a mark takes a finding in your own words. For voice patients, Laryngoscopic findings shows the larynx as flexible laryngoscopy does, and each mark is picked from a fixed list: nodule, polyp, cyst, Reinke's oedema, sulcus vocalis, incomplete glottic closure and two more. The mouth map holds what you see; the larynx map, what the laryngoscopy report found.
The home practice sheet
Home practice tasks holds up to twenty lines of Task, Repetitions or minutes, How often and notes, with What the programme is for, Precautions and when to stop and a Review on date. Home programme prints them for the family, followed by a Practice log: one line per task and a box for each weekday, two weeks to a page while the list is short. What happened in the therapy room is not printed; the sheet holds instructions only.
Booking a course, and working with the rest of the practice
Speech therapy comes in runs, often twice a week for months. In Add appointment, tick Course of treatment, choose the Days of the week and type How many sessions (2 to 30, same hour). Each date is checked against the therapist's hours and bookings, and one clash refuses the whole run. Stop the course cancels what remains if therapy ends early, and Email the patient a reminder the day before is stored on every session it created. The physiotherapy guide shows the same calendar from a physiotherapist's side.
- Referrals out. The Referral letter says who the patient goes to, how soon and why, and adds the session's diagnosis and therapy. Hearing tests and laryngoscopy usually go to ENT: see ENT clinic software.
- Inside a larger practice. Where the practice runs two departments or more, Refer to a department passes a request to another team, paediatrics for instance, onto its Referrals list. For children both teams follow, read paediatric clinic software. Adults after a stroke are often referred from neurology: see neurology software.
- A rehabilitation centre's extras. In OPALEVI for rehabilitation centres screens say “session” and “Therapist”, and Programmes and Groups file sessions under a treatment programme with goals and run group classes. A private practice has neither.
- Files. Session documents (Visit documents in a private practice) takes a scanned ENT report or a short MP4 video, up to 10 MB each. There is no audio recorder, and audio files are not accepted.
Billing is on from the day you register: Invoice this visit turns the session's services into an invoice, and Book a follow-up appointment takes you to the calendar with the patient chosen. Reception books, registers and takes payment, but reads session notes only if the practice allows it; finance never does. Record privacy, under Settings → Department setup, can limit speech records to Only the clinician: the one each record is assigned to. Every save lands in the Change history, with its author and a before-and-after.
Questions to ask before choosing speech therapy software
Ask every vendor, ours included, and test the answers on one of your own courses.
| Question | Look for | OPALEVI |
|---|---|---|
| Can progress be followed across a course? | The same measures charted session by session. | Yes: intelligibility and MLU on one chart. |
| Can a whole course be booked at once? | Days and a count, checked against the therapist's hours. | Yes: 2 to 30 sessions in one booking. |
| Does the session number follow the booking? | Filled in from the course. | No: Session no. is typed. |
| Does it score standardised tests? | Licensed tests with their own forms, or a clear no. | No: severity is the clinician's rating, and no test is scored. |
| Does it compare results with age norms? | Clarity about what it judges. | No: numbers are recorded, never banded. |
| Can a session be recorded on audio? | An audio field, or a way to attach the file. | Partly: a short MP4 video attaches; audio files do not. |
| Do families get a home sheet? | Tasks, frequency and a log to tick. | Yes: the Home programme with a practice log. |
| Will the bill follow the caseload? | A price you can work out in advance. | It follows the team: per staff member, however many sessions you run. |
Today's prices sit on the pricing page and the full module list on the features page; the wider checklist, from invoicing to data protection, is in how to choose clinic software.
Your first week with speech therapy in OPALEVI
The First steps list on Today ticks itself off as you go.
Register and choose the department
Register as a rehabilitation centre, or as a private practice if you work alone, and tick speech therapy.
Check the price list
Add your services and prices: a new speech department starts with an assessment, a therapy session and a follow-up to rename and price. Then Set up the report letterhead.
Book one real course
Book a current patient's next run of sessions with Course of treatment, and tick the reminder if the family has an email address on file.
Bring in the team
Invite your colleagues and give each a role; this is also when to decide whether reception may read session notes.
Judge intelligibility the same way every time
A percentage compares only if it is taken alike: a similar listener and sample, typed every session. From the second session, the chart has something to show the family.
Frequently asked questions
What is speech therapy software?
A program that keeps a speech and language practice's sessions in structured form: articulators, sounds in error, fluency, intelligibility, language, voice and swallowing, with the goals and the tasks sent home. Courses are booked together, progress is charted across them, and reports, referral letters and home sheets print on the practice's own paper.
Does OPALEVI score stuttering, voice or swallowing tests?
No. Stuttering severity is the clinician's own rating on a plain five-step list, voice records maximum phonation time and laryngoscopy findings, and swallowing records diet texture and notes. No standardised questionnaire or licensed test is scored, and no figure is compared with an age norm. What a result means stays the therapist's call.
Can reception see speech therapy notes?
Only if the practice allows it. Reception books courses, registers patients and takes payment; reading the session history is a clinic setting, off until the practice turns it on, and finance has no access to clinical records. Record privacy can also keep speech records to the clinician each one is assigned to.
Can I use it on a tablet during a session?
Yes. OPALEVI runs in the browser, so a tablet, phone or computer with an up-to-date browser is enough, and nothing is installed. On a narrow screen the menu moves to a bar at the bottom, leaving room to type figures beside the child.
Can I try it before paying?
Yes: there is a free trial, and no card is asked for, from the moment you register. Book a real course, run two sessions and print a home sheet. Should the trial end without a plan, you are charged nothing and the records stay open to read.
How is OPALEVI priced for a speech therapy practice?
You pay a seat for every staff member who holds an active account in the practice, and a yearly plan lowers the monthly rate. Patients, sessions and courses never count, so a full caseload costs the same as a quiet month. See the pricing page.
