This story is published as part of the Baltimore News Collaborative, a project exploring the challenges and successes experienced by young people in Baltimore. The latest series explores the use of AI in education. The collaborative is supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. News members of the collaborative retain full editorial control.

Piles of paperwork aren’t what draw speech-language pathologists to a life of helping kids communicate.

Still, there’s plenty of it. Preparing for therapy means time-consuming tasks like coming up with fresh activities kids won’t hate and translating treatment plans into parent-friendly explainers. Some are turning to generative AI for help.

Speech-language pathologists, also called speech therapists, diagnose and treat communication disorders that can create learning challenges for children. They embed in schools and often work with younger kids after parents notice issues. Sometimes it’s a stutter or a struggle to pronounce a certain sound, but a language disorder might also include trouble understanding syntax or forming full sentences.

To free up mental space while working with their pint-size patients, some speech therapists have begun experimenting with artificial intelligence to speed up burdensome administrative tasks.

Generative AI, which creates new content in response to prompts by studying existing data, could eventually clear the path for longer therapy sessions or allow therapists to take on more clients.

“I think it could make a lot of what I do easier and faster, which would allow me to focus more on my clients and our session and the quality of care,” said Megan Myatt, a Carroll County-based speech therapist and owner of Growing Together Speech Language Therapy.

Myatt said she’s exploring the new technology “slowly and carefully” and is leery of using it for anything beyond creating therapy materials. So far, she’s asked ChatGPT, a popular generative AI tool, to do things like help her come up with activities a 4-year-old autistic child who loves animals may enjoy and create a list of “S” words and pictures for a child struggling with pronouncing that letter.

“It does kind of help to generate creativity a bit,” said Myatt, who’s worked in the field for 13 years. “When you’ve been doing the same thing for a long time, it’s good to get some different ideas.”

Lauren Arner, associate director of school services in speech-language pathology for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, said speech therapists may also use AI to help kids who are uninterested in writing brainstorm ideas for assignments, as kids with language disorders can have a hard time thinking up new ideas. Arner compared it to letting kids flip through magazines for inspiration.

But she stressed that students shouldn’t use AI alone as therapy.

“While generative AI can be a powerful tool,” Arner said, “it’s absolutely not a substitute for the knowledge and expertise of a speech-language pathologist.”

AI can also help therapists talk to families, she said. A speech-language pathologist might write up a one-page literacy resource for a fourth grader’s parents that’s bogged down with jargon. AI can translate that resource into plain, understandable language, before a human reviews it and sends it off. That can cut the time it takes to complete a mundane task more than in half, Arner said.

“Right now, we have a lot of educators, including speech-language pathologists, that are suffering from shortages in their schools and high workloads,” said Arner. “In the future, I would hope that as the technology advances and we’re able to use it extremely responsibly, that we’ll have speech pathologists that are feeling really happy and content in their job.”

Julie E. LeMoine, an assistant professor in the psychiatry department at UMass Chan Medical School, said she encounters a lot of hesitation and skepticism from professionals like therapists on using generative AI. She’s used it for years and emphasizes that the technology is assisting, not replacing, them.

[Read more stories from the Baltimore News Collaborative]

AI still needs human guardrails, even for something as simple as writing easier-to-understand emails or describing therapies, LeMoine said. Myatt pointed out that even using an AI transcription service to document sessions for later analysis could be tricky, as it may correct a child saying “eated” to “ate” — and if the therapist doesn’t know that, they can’t correct the mistake.

“You read every single word,” LeMoine said. “You do not expect it to be correct.”

LeMoine said “we’re just at the very beginning of understanding how to put the guardrails” on using AI with therapy. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association already has ethics guidelines for members on using AI. Arner said clinicians shouldn’t put clients’ identifiable details into generative AI tools that connect to larger language models, for example, as then personal information could be used to train other tools and put clients’ privacy at risk.

There are other concerns with generative AI, such as its large electricity and water demands. The learning models behind data tools like ChatGPT are powered by data centers, the expansion of which in Virginia could drive up Maryland’s energy bills. Generative AI also hallucinates, or makes stuff up, which is why it’s important to double- and triple-check its output.

AI could eventually do more for therapists than just background work, LeMoine said. She imagines a future in which a generative AI agent could follow and learn from a child over time.

Myatt wonders if she could eventually use AI to visualize her clients’ progress, documentation that “takes up hours of my time during the week.”

Still, professionals want to make sure AI never replaces therapists, even if parents may be tempted to treat ChatGPT like Dr. Google.

“I think it’s a double-edged sword,” Myatt said. “It’s a time-saver and an energy-saver. But at the same time, I worry that we’re all going to become complacent in not thinking critically or using our skills.”

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.