The Foreign Service Journal, June 2012

J U N E 2 0 1 2 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 67 S CHOOLS S UPPLEMENT serious thought. Then it dawned on me: it would make sense to continue seeing my clients online. I saw no rea- son why it would not work with clients with whom I had already established rapport. At 4:50 a.m. on July 6, 2011, I turned on my computer, logged onto my newly built therapy Web site, ready for my first telepractice session — and hoped! All I could think to myself was: What will I do with a whole 30 minutes if I can’t see or hear my client properly? What if she can’t understand me? Then I saw her name come onto the screen; she had signed on. Okay, I thought: that worked. Then up popped her cute little face. Oh, it’s great to see her again, I thought. But my heart was still racing. I began to speak, and she smiled. I finally exhaled; if all else failed, she would at least be able to see and hear me. And she did — she never missed a beat during our session. We under- stood each other, and together we accomplished the same tasks that we had so many times before, sitting in her family’s front room in Brazil. Was it the same? Not quite. I couldn’t give her a sticker for her good Just like the special education teacher in a school, online providers target specific deficits that impair an individual’s ability to succeed in social or academic situations. Continued on page 72