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I developed a keen interest in dysphagia while in graduate school. My mentors, encouraged me to enhance the skills I gained during my practicums by obtaining my Clinical Fellowship in a Skilled Nursing Facility. From my experience in the SNF and psychiatric care hospital, I now am proficient in diagnosing and treating swallowing disorders, and making recommendations regarding tube feedings.

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LAMP Words for Life®
Speak for Yourself
Tobii Dynavox (Snap™ Core First®)
Proloquo2Go
PECS
Flip N' Talk

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Helping children (and previously adults) with complex communication needs "find their voices" through AAC is exciting to me and essential. I love offering insight on the complex nature of communication;  I believe Paul Watzlawick's said it best when he stated: "One cannot not communicate." I believe it is imperative for SLPs to educate and advocate for our children and to ensure we find the means. From there, we then make sure our kids can share genuine, authentic information, and therefore are able to connect with others.

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In 2020, I became a PECS Level I Implementer. One of the greatest things I learned from implementing this program is how strategic I need to be in prompting; I learned how emerging communicators can become prompt-dependent and I now can provide students' families with clear strategies to ensure independent learning. Although I tended to transition many of my students to more robust systems, I continue to find the PECS strategies valuable, especially when coaching parents.

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Working with medically complex students, who also have complex communication needs, I learned how important my role is in supporting literacy development. When working with students who use AAC, I always recommend systems that have access to keyboards, so literacy can be targeted in therapy.

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50% of my caseload consists of students who use dedicated AAC systems (both electronic and non-electronic) to communicate. More than half of my other students use other AAC strategies for language development.

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I obtained my first internship during college at Princeton Speech-Language and Learning Center. There, I was introduced to Social Thinking®, which I continue to use with my students who are diagnosed with ASD and ADHD. I enjoy working with these students particularly in groups, to foster connections between peers.

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Many of my students present with motor speech sound disorders and childhood apraxia of speech. During treatment, I use a combination of phonemic, tactile and visual cues to increase students' productions. I would like to further my abilities to treat this population by obtaining PROMPT certification.

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This year I had the honor of working with 826DC, a "nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6-18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write."
While working on their Young Authors' Book Project, an experience where they offer children the opportunity to write original stories and poems, and then combine students' pieces to publish a professional book, team members identified several students who were nonverbal communicators, and also could not "read" or "write." 826DC contacted me to assist these students. Although it was essential to me that my students were included, it was most important to me that the pieces were authentic.
In the end, all of my students were able to share their voices and were published!

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Evaluate my writing skills by viewing a recent comprehensive speech and language evaluation I wrote. Please note, in order to maintain student confidentiality, portions of this evaluation were removed and changed.

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During my final graduate clinical placement, I continued to read and analyze modified barium swallow studies, and then gained experience administering different diet textures during the MBSS.
I also completed observations in the NICU, which initiated my interest in pediatric feeding/swallowing.

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My current work with children (especially those who have feeding tubes due to swallowing disorders), and previous treatments of patients with dysphagia, led me to my next goal: pediatric feeding/swallowing.