Therapy Snow Day Plan: Keep Progress Going Through a Storm

Somewhere on your winter calendar there is already a morning when the roads ice over, the schools close, and every session on the schedule disappears before 6 a.m. A therapy snow day plan decides what happens to that day before the storm does. Without one, families get a vague text at dawn and an unplanned day at home.

For many kids on your caseload, a snow day is a double disruption: school and therapy vanish at once, and the predictable shape of the day goes with them. In our house, that kind of day felt off before breakfast.

Why a therapy snow day plan protects continuity

Routine disruption is hard on many autistic kids, as our guide to regression after routine disruption explains. A snow day plan is not about a full session at all costs. The goal is that clients and families keep some thread of the work.

Telehealth makes that thread realistic, especially for parent coaching. A feasibility pilot by Bearss and colleagues delivered parent training via telehealth to 14 rural families of autistic children with disruptive behavior. Thirteen families completed treatment, therapists kept 98 percent fidelity to the manual, and parents found the format acceptable. A randomized trial of telehealth parent training in the Early Start Denver Model found larger gains in parent fidelity and satisfaction than a community program. For speech and language services, a large comparison using ASHA outcome measures found telepractice and in-person outcomes largely comparable for elementary students working on spoken language goals.

The parent training studies are small, so telehealth is best framed as a solid backup, not a perfect substitute for every client.

Seven steps to build your therapy snow day plan in November

1. Decide the weather call and who makes it. Pick a trigger, such as the local school district closing, and name the staff member who sends the message. A rule families can predict beats a judgment call at 5 a.m.
2. Write the cancellation message now. Draft one short template: session canceled, telehealth slot offered or not, next in-person visit. Send the message through the channel families actually read, before anyone is buckling kids into the car.
3. Offer a telehealth backup matched to the client. Not every child will sit for video. For many families, the better option is a short parent coaching call where the clinician walks a caregiver through one strategy inside a real routine. Our telehealth parent coaching guide covers the format.
4. Check payer telehealth rules before the storm. Telehealth coverage varies by payer and by state. ASHA's telepractice guidance advises verifying coverage before services begin and notes that SLPs must be licensed in the state where the client is located. BCBAs and OTs should check their own boards and state rules. Confirm which plans on your caseload cover a remote session and whether current authorizations allow it.
5. Send a home activity kit home before December. One page with two or three activities tied to current goals, plus a folder of picture cards or a first-then board. A family with the kit on the fridge has a plan when the session vanishes.
6. Keep the shape of the day. Encourage families to hold the usual session time as therapy time, whether that hour becomes a kit activity or a video call. The day keeps a familiar anchor.
7. Close the loop after the storm. Ask families what they used, document what your records allow, and update the plan for the next storm. Our guide to missed therapy appointments has rescheduling ideas.

Prepare families, not just staff

Share a short version of your therapy snow day plan with families in November: how the weather call is made, how the message arrives, and what the backup looks like. Families who know the plan spend a snow day morning on breakfast instead of their inbox.

Winter stacks storms on top of holidays, so pair the plan with your holiday break regression plan and a winter sensory diet, giving families one winter handoff instead of three. Parents who want indoor ideas can use our guide to bad weather days at home.

VizyPlan was built by an autism dad and an autism mom who is a licensed speech-language pathologist so a snow day can still show a familiar picture schedule, with therapy time right where the kids on your caseload expect it.

Share VizyPlan with your families so a snow day still has a plan they can see. Try it free for a week. If it helps, keep going for $6.99/month or $59.99/year.

VizyPlan was built by an autism dad and an autism mom who is a licensed speech-language pathologist who needed something that did not exist. Explore VizyPlan.