Clinical Experience

I practiced for six years as a speech-language pathologist and teacher of the gifted and talented before pursuing a doctorate. My clinical work combined best practices from these two domains to meet the needs of all students, including twice-exceptional students with disparate areas of talent and need at an nursery-high school independent school in New York State. As the founder and director I was personally responsible for the creation and implementation of the following components of a differentiated educational program:

Case Management:

• Oversaw the education of all students in the building.
• Monitored total IEP/504 implementation, oversaw student services for quality control and communication across different providers, ensured proper communication with parents.
• Acted as a liaison between family, school, the district of residence, and the district of location.
• Notified all staff interacting with students about their individual responsibilities.
• Ensured that all students received appropriate accommodations and modifications.

Personnel Director:

• Curated and managed a multidiciplinary team of service providers providing direct and indirect service to children on caseload.
  • Literacy specialists
  • Classroom enrichment specialists
  • Speech-language pathologists

Direct Service:

• Designed and provided goal-directed service that focused on maximizing students’ ability to receive, send, process, and comprehend concepts or verbal, nonverbal, and graphic symbol systems within the following domains:
  • Speech (including articulation, fluency, and voice)
  • Language (including phonological awareness, morphosyntax/grammar, semantics/vocabulary, and pragmatics/social language)
  • Executive functioning (including organization, time management, and planning)
  • Aural rehabilitation (including speech reading, communication strategies, phonetic awareness, and hearing aid maintenance)

Consultation:

• Guided teachers to provide instruction in targeted best practices in both support and enrichment in order to reach the greatest number of students as well as maintain the least restrictive environment – the grade level classroom.

Curriculum Planning:

• Directed implementation of a social-emotional learning curriculum, STEM programming, and a social entrepreneurship curriculum at the school.

Professional Development:

• Conducted professional development for the school regarding best practices to enrich the academic environment.
• Served as invited speaker at professional development sessions around the region.