My guest this week is Sherri Cawn, a speech language pathologist who has specialized in the assessment and treatment of infants, toddlers, and school-aged children with developmental challenges for over 38 years. Sherri has incredible experience as well as a bird’s eye view of the field and how it has evolved in the past several decades. She is also a leading practitioner of the DIR/Floortime® model in speech and language development, having trained extensively with Dr. Stanley Greenspan and Dr. Serena Weider, and trains other professionals throughout the US, Europe, and Asia on the theoretical and clinical concepts of DIR/Floortime®.
In our conversation, Sherri shares a wealth of knowledge about communication disorders, and we cover everything from the different ways that communication disorders show up and what speech language pathology is, to what types of issues SLPs support children with and what signs might be indicators to parents that their child could benefit from working with a speech language pathologist.
About Sherri: Sherri Cawn,M.A.,CCC-SLP, clinical director of Cawn-Krantz and Associates Developmental Therapies ( with locations in Chicago and Northbrook,Il) , has over 40 years of clinical pediatric experience specializing in the assessment and treatment of infants, toddlers, and school-age children. She is a leading practitioner of the DIR/Floortime® model in speech and language development and conducts trainings other professionals throughout the US and overseas on the concepts of this model.
Sherri is the author of the self study DVD/Manual on the Assessment and Intervention of DIR/Floortime produced by the American Speech and Hearing Association in 2011 and the self study DVD on the Assessment/Intervention of Developmental Language(2013)., In addition she is a co-author of Language Disorders chapter in the Diagnostic Manual for Infancy and Early Childhood and she is a co author of the Profectum Parent Toolbox,( March, 2016) an online free webcast series for parents and caretakers.
Sherri is a senior faculty member of the ICDL DIR FT; the Profectum(DIR/FT) Academy Online Training Program and adjunct faculty at the Erikson Institute. She received her graduate and undergraduate degrees from the University of Illinois.
THINGS YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
- What a speech language pathologist does
- What characteristics of a communications disorder are
- When a parent should reach out for an assessment and intervention with an SLP
- Why a child’s individual profile is more important than their diagnosis when it comes to understanding how to best support them
- How SLPs help children strengthen their social use of language
- How parents can be strong advocates for their children in school
- How our awareness and understanding of communications disorders has evolved over the past fifty years
RESOURCES MENTIONED:
- Cawn/Krantz & Associates Developmental Therapy (Sherri’s website)
- Email: sherrislp@comcast.net
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