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WILLOW GROVE — As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt everyday life, a Montgomery County virtual business was prepared for a virtual working environment. “I think that it just gets the services to more people than ever before,” said Orna Azulay, owner of Abington Speech Pathology Services and Remote Speech, LLC. Azulay is also president of Abington Speech Pathology Services and chief operating officer of Remote Speech, LLC. Headquartered in Willow Grove, Azulay has more than 150 therapists employed across both enterprises offering staffing and services for physical, occupational and speech therapies. Her latest venture, Remote Speech, LLC. launched in 2015 and separated from the larger entity in 2019, connecting speech pathologists, and school counselors to clients nationwide and around the world. In addition, Azulay spotlighted several options for children and adults, including those on the autism spectrum. Azulay emphasized the importance of gaining communication skills including learning how to take turns, follow directions, look into the computer screen and maintain eye contact, and pick up on other social cues. Azulay has found that the virtual environment has been popular for her clients. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, she would often use screen time as a reward at the end of a session. “Now the therapy became the reward without them even realizing it,” she said. “So a lot of times kids on the spectrum get to interact in a way that they think is a reward now, and they’re still able to be grouped so they still have that social piece for communication of what we’re really working on.” Now living in Horsham, Azulay was originally born in Israel, and came to the U.S. with her family when she was 9 years old. After graduating high school in the states and completing her military service in her native Israel, she came back to California to go to school and ended up studying speech pathology. “I never knew much about speech pathology. A family friend told me to explore it as a career option. I fell In love with it,” she said. “The ability to provide therapy that in turn restores people the ability [to] communicate and to be able to decipher what caused their issue and how to help them was and still is fascinating to me.” Once she received her graduate degree, Azulay moved to the Philadelphia area, and opened Abington Speech Pathology Services in 1999. Azulay had marketed Remote Speech, LLC. on a virtual platform. When schools and nonessential businesses shuttered their doors due to health and safety restrictions associated with the coronavirus, there was a seamless transition with training and continuing sessions. “So we’re lucky enough that we were able to continue the services uninterrupted pretty quickly right after the pandemic shut everything down,” Azulay said. For instance, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, roughly 25 therapists and staff members within Lower Merion School District were taught how to conduct sessions online. “Our expertise helped people in the area,” she said. As Autism Acceptance Month continues, the Autism Society of America highlighted a “changing differences” campaign as a theme for the month of April. While the pandemic has hindered Azulay from putting on in-person events, her companies maintain an active presence in blog posts and on various social media platforms. Still, she said she believes a virtual therapy format will stick around once the pandemic ends. “It’s amazing,” Azulay said. “I do understand now that there’s a slight fatigue from the screen because everything is done online, but I think when things go back to normal, and you only leave the therapies for online, not just out of mere convenience, but really we’re able to tap into so many more therapists … and you reduce the time that the client has to travel. We reduce space problems in schools.” For more information about the company’s virtual services, visit remotespeech.com.