Sounderic: Online speech therapy in India

Today, we bring you the story of a forum that has been bringing joy to people’s lives through its noble deeds. Yes, we are talking about Sounderic, founded and run by Sanya Modi. Let’s start with her journey.

Personal life

She was born and brought up in Indore, Madhya Pradesh where she attended a convent school for girls at St. Raphaels's. Sanya shares “I have always been academically driven, a straight-A student. My mother made sure I participated in each competition or event whether it was arts, sports, or academics. As a child, I had only heard discussions about business at my home.”

The motivation

Everyone needs motivation in their life to move forward. On asking Sanya about what motivates her, she mentioned, “My parents, my brother, and my peers have always motivated me. I always like to learn new things and acquire new skills. In school and college, I have always liked to lead a team or be a part of a team. I love a good challenge and would always find ways to overcome it.”

Business Information 

Sanya mentioned, “I have always been interested in teletherapy (online therapy) seeing the convenience, comfort, and reach. Sometimes my past patients couldn't visit me because they moved countries or cities. I often wondered how could I provide their services from anywhere in the world. Teletherapy was growing by then, especially in the west. When lockdown began and all the learning went digital, I got the much-needed push to try and start my practice online. The idea was that speech therapy should be accessible to everyone.”

Initiation

Sanya started it in May 2020 as a lockdown project. She made her website and slowly started hiring interns and therapists as the caseload increased. For the first year, she was doing it part-time while also having a full-time job as a therapist in school. But in 2021 she realized, she needed to give ‘Sounderic’ all her time, and thus started working on it full time from April 2021.

What do you love the most about Sounderic.

She said, “every day at work is different for me. I enjoy interacting with new people every day and since we cater to so many varied speech and language disorders we never get bored.”

Sanya personally handles marketing, operations, business development, content writing, and other departments. She mentioned that she loved being an entrepreneur. “It's all-consuming and makes me wake up excited to go to work every day.” I love brainstorming with the team and working in a group. All the therapists at ‘Sounderic’ have a shared goal revolving around helping our patients. “Every time a child says his first word or someone speaks fluently without stuttering, it's very rewarding. I feel a sense of purpose and meaning in my work. I love the flexibility and the great degree of control that I have as the founder,” shares Sanya.

The challenges

Sanya said “It has been a very interesting journey. I have learned so much along the way.” There were so many technical challenges and business issues that she didn't have any background in but she always took it up as the next challenge she needed to complete. At times she would be overwhelmed with the amount of work but she worked on organization and time management skills. Also, she had a hard time delegating work to others but now she has been able to structure it well and give equal responsibilities to everyone.

 Services offered

Sounderic provides online speech therapy services (also known as teletherapy). They connect families with an experienced speech-language pathologist who will work with them on effective treatment online. It has made it easier to seek help from the comfort and privacy of one’s own home, office, etc. Treatment is provided in individual and small group settings with a focus on developing functional communication skills.

“It is our mission to provide quality, comprehensive speech and language pathology services.” 

Online speech therapy can offer better convenience and flexibility with appointments and is a safe bet given the current social distancing measures brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. They work with a wide range of ages, from infants and toddlers up to teenagers, young adults, and seniors and we will match a family with a therapist who works with their schedule.

Their Speech & Hearing Clinic offers adult and pediatric speech therapy for conditions such as developmental delay, autism, aphasia, dementia, voice and fluency disorders, neurogenic speech disorders, and articulatory and phonological disorders, among others. We use critical intervention and therapeutic techniques to assess patients' communication disorders. Sounderic has treated patients speaking various languages Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Hindi, English, etc.

The Team

Sounderic is a team of six currently including therapist and a marketing team. “We have a very dedicated team at Sounderic. Everyone loves what they do.”

they celebrate their little wins together whether it's a new word that a child said or an aphasia patient saying their first sentence after months of not being able to speak. All the speech-language pathologists are motivated and go the extra mile to help their patients and the company. their speech therapist Ms. Simone Salins says," Working at Sounderic has been a wonderful experience. The team encourages me to step outside my comfort zone and has helped me learn soo much more. There is a warm and motivating work environment every day that pushes me to do better." Another therapist Ms. Keerti Swarna says," I have got a great opportunity to learn and grow as a professional. A fun work environment where I can be flexible with my schedule. My patient’s progress being my main reinforcement and motivation to do better!" 

Present Day

Sounderic has consulted with more than 700+ patients in the last 1 year. Sounderic is backed by a lot of glowing reviews too, so you don't have to just take our word for it. "My child wasn’t able to say even one word and now she can say difficult words with so much confidence," one parent writes. Last year, Sounderic created a unique program to meet the needs of the parents. A parent training program developed by Sanya Modi prepares and trains parents in the use of strategies to promote their child’s language development through play. This program provides much-needed help for children who are waitlisted for speech-language services, who may not qualify for therapy through local early intervention and preschool programs, or parents who cannot venture out with the kids due to the pandemic.

Sounderic patient says "My child is just 2.5 years old so the idea of actually going out for therapy during COVID-19 was daunting. Online speech therapy works for us as we can get trained and help our child from the comfort of our home."

The Sounderic team mentioned, “We have seen a lot of parents come forward to avail these services as they don’t want their children to fall behind. After speaking to a lot of concerned mothers on our Facebook group (a group with more than 13,000 active parents) called Speech therapy guide for parents and WhatsApp groups, the common theme that has emerged is excessive screen time and lack of language stimulation and conversation partners at home.”

From birth to the age of 3, parents are the ones in the session, and they are taught strategies and activities that they can use at home to help their child develop their communication.

Sounderic also runs a social skills program and many children, especially on the spectrum are benefiting from it. Simple skills like starting a conversation, problem-solving, inferencing, etc can be difficult for children with autism, learning disabilities, and delayed speech.

Future Plans

“In the next few years, our goal is to create more awareness about speech-language disorders among the masses. We want to make access to a professional and experienced speech therapist easy even in remote areas and towns. Also, integrate technological solutions so that patients can get support education and resources instantly through our portal. We are also aiming to be a one-stop solution for all special needs-related services and products,” mentioned Sanya.

Advice for the readers

On asking for some advice for our readers, Sanya said, “Early intervention is very important. So we request all parents to not wait it out. If you feel your child is not meeting their speech and language milestones you must consult a speech-language pathologist at the earliest.

Communication is a very important skill so we all should work on putting our best selves out there. If you stutter, speak too fast, avoid public speaking, or often find it difficult to start or maintain conversations. There is help and we at Sounderic believe that communication should be easy for everyone. There is no harm in getting help and speech therapy helps you become a confident speaker. Whether you are 5 years or 80 years old we can help you. If you are currently struggling with a speech disorder, or just want to improve your public speaking skills, online speech therapy can be a perfect way for you to get the help that you need.”