HOW IT STARTED

Providing individualized, comprehensive, and evidence-based speech therapy for children with a range of speech and language diagnoses.

I’m a pediatric speech-language pathologist in New York City specializing in the evaluation and treatment of children with a range of speech and language diagnoses, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD), Trisomy 21, cerebral palsy, receptive and expressive language disorders, and childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). I focus on including families throughout the evaluation and intervention process with the goal of developing home programs that fit within every family’s busy schedule. I’m a firm believer that therapy should be considered fun, not work! This allows children to remain engaged throughout therapy sessions and further reinforces the back-and-forth nature of communication. While some goals are best addressed sitting at a table, I also love the opportunity to work with children in a variety of functional contexts, such as baking in the kitchen or going on a community outing to address goals in other settings! As a two-time graduate of the Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) program, I value an interdisciplinary approach and continuously seek out collaboration with physicians, occupational therapists, physical therapists, teachers, and Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapists. 

I completed my undergraduate degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received my Masters in Speech-Language Pathology at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. I subsequently completed my clinical fellowship at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) where I received extensive training in the evaluation and therapeutic intervention of pediatric speech, language, and swallowing disorders across various acute care and rehabilitation settings. I completed two additional years of training at CHOP following my fellowship. This allowed me to further specialize in Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) and in the evaluation of toddlers exhibiting signs concerning for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). After moving to New York in 2019, I gained further experience in additional settings, including a private school for kids with ASD and NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital.

I have extensive training and experience in the evaluation and implementation of AAC systems, including picture communication boards, the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), and high-tech speech-generating devices with varying language software programs (e.g., LAMP Words for Life, Unity, Proloquo2Go, etc.). I have attended a variety of national AAC conferences and am trained in Prompts for Restructuring Oral Motor Phonetic Targets (PROMPT), PECS, the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule - 2nd Edition (ADOS-2), and Language Acquisition through Motor Planning (LAMP). I also received an Award for Continuing Education (ACE) award through the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) in 2019 and 2020 and am a member of the ASHA AAC Special Interest Group. 

FOUNDER

Anna Ollinger, MS, CCC-SLP, TSSLD