Episode 134: The SCC Pod - Ann Densmore and the Gift of Enabling a Child to Speak

Matthew Valleau is a bilingual speech and language pathologist whose career trajectory took him from early intervention, where he worked with families in their homes, finally to working with children in the Boston Public Schools. Matthew brings a special set of talents and perspectives to helping children communicate.Reference: Valleau M, Arunachalam S (2017). The effects of linguistic context on visual attention while learning novel verbs, Proceedings of the 41st annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, Ed. Maria Lamendola and Jennifer Scott, 691-705. Somerville MA: Cascadilla Press.

Ann Densmore is a certified speech pathologist and audiologist with a doctorate in education from Clark University (specialty in child discourse) and a master’s in human development and psychology from Harvard University Graduate School of Education.Resources:Douglas S, Dunkel-Jackson, Sun T, Owusu P (2022). A review of research related to the POWR intervention: a Communication partner intervention to support children with neurodevelopmental disorders, Current Developmental Disorders Reports, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40474-022-0244-6.Vallotton C, Mastergeorge A, Foster T, Decker K, Ayoub C (2017). Parenting supports for early vocabulary development: Specific effects of sensitivity and stimulation through infancy, Infancy, 22(1):78-107. doing: 10.1111/infa.12147. Knolle F, Vallotton C, Ayoub C (2018). Maltreated children use more grammatical negations, J Fam Child Stud, 27:453-464, dot:10.1007/s10826-017-0905-3. Olswang L, Prelock P (2015). Bridging the gap between research and practice: Implementation science, Supplement Article, J Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, doi:10.1044/2015_JSLHR-L-14-0305. Densmore A, Helping Children with Autism Become More Social (2007). Greenwood Publishing Company.

Sara Douglas, Assoc Prof at Michigan State University in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies talks about her life-long mission to support communication in children with language disabilities.

Dr. Prelock talks about her studies of the nature and treatment of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) emphasizing the role of emotion regulation, social communication and perspective taking as important components of social cognition.

131 the SCC Pod: Jaclyn Roberto speaks about her work supporting children with communication problems and their families in weekly out patient sessions.Jaclyn is a speech-language pathologist who has been in the field for about 13 years.  Although she has worked in multiple settings over the course of her career, most of her career has been in a pediatric outpatient setting, where she works closely with families who bring their children for weekly speech therapy sessions. She has a passion for working with early childhood language, children on the autistic spectrum, pediatric feeding disorders, and augmentative-alternative communication. 

In this episode, we talk with Dr. Claire Vallotton, a professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Michigan State University. She studies communication between preverbal children and their parents and educators, and develops curricula and workshops to help caregivers understand and respond to young children’s communication cues so that they can respect babies as little individuals with legitimate feelings, wants, and needs.

Carol Krusemark is a speech/language pathologist with over 30 years of clinical experience.  While she currently specializes in serving professional voice users, she has also worked in hospitals, schools, and on early intervention teams.  Her current areas of interest include teaching, supervision, and incorporation of trauma-informed care principles into clinical care.

We are delighted to welcome Sara MacIntyre to begin our series on Kids and Language. Sara is a speech and language therapist who specializes in stuttering based in Philadelphia. She owns YouSpeak Stuttering Therapy and hosts a webinar series and a podcast. She is also an Adjunct Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University. 

Alexandra Harrison talks about “Co-Regulation”.

Dr. Isabella Caldwell talks about the very common problem of sleep disorders in autistic children on the autistic spectrum.