Personal: I have lived in Missoula most of my adult life, with a 9-year stint in Southwest Alaska, which is an area I love. I am married and have two adult children. My daughter lives in the Seattle area and is a photographer in both Montana and Washington. My son is a college student in Spokane and he is on the swim team. We have a black lab and she is very spoiled. I coached swimming at the Missoula YMCA for 13 years.

Professional: I have been a Speech-Language Pathologist since 2013, and have had the pleasure of spending most of my SLP career at Target Range. I also do speech therapy with adults at local skilled nursing facilities in the summer. I am very active in my state professional association and was the President in 2021. I have worked for the University of Montana as a clinical supervisor and an Assistant Adjunct Professor, and recently earned my endorsement in Administration of Special Education.

It is important to know that not all students qualify for speech therapy at schools, as our guidelines from the state require that students demonstrate a certain level of deficit in order to qualify. Students with single speech errors, like /r/, usually would not qualify until at least second grade, for example. There is a screening program in place for all Kindergarten students, and I often follow students with screening 3 times a year to make sure they are making progress. If you have a concern about your student, please email or call me, or contact your student's teacher, and they can also get in touch with me.

Working together: I think the best way to work with younger students on any skill is by reading to/with them. This models correct speech sounds, and asking open-ended questions about the book, like "What do you think will happen next?" provides opportunities for students to use the words or pictures to make a "smart guess," and then practice their language organization to respond to the question. For students with any type of disorder (speech sound, fluency, social communication, language) it is important to know that it takes improved skills a long time to make their way out of the speech therapy room, so you may not see skills at home that I report are happening in the clinical environment. Be patient, and always provide a lot of praise when you see or hear those new skills emerging!

Contacting me: I am always happy to visit with parents about any speech, language, or social communication concerns they have about their students. I have a very busy schedule, so it is easiest to get a hold of me from 8:00-8:30 a.m. by phone, or via email any time.