| I first developed the concept of becoming | | | | on the cover of USA today. My articles are |
| symptom-free of disability when I was working on my | | | | recommended by The American Speech & |
| Career Development Award from The National | | | | Hearing Association as examples of Best Practices. |
| Institutes of Health. As a brain scientist working for the | | | | Changing the Brain |
| most rigorous medical research facility in the world, I | | | | All of these populations have symptoms in attention, |
| discovered that many disorders thought to be due to | | | | memory, listening, reading, writing or speaking. At the |
| permanent brain malfunction could actually be | | | | time of our research in stuttering for example, this |
| improved to a symptom-free status. | | | | disorder was thought to be a chronic life long disability. |
| Brain Based Communication Disorders | | | | Therapy was organized around support groups to |
| At this time, many years before my own autistic son, | | | | manage living with the problem or therapy to |
| Whitney was born, I was studying 4 populations: | | | | desensitize you so you did not feel as bad when you |
| 1. Preschool Children With Language Disorders | | | | stuttered. I headed a research team working on helping |
| My staff and I evaluated 600 Head Start children per | | | | stutterers become symptom free which resulted in |
| year for 12 years and provided a multiple therapy | | | | changing how therapists view stuttering world wide. As |
| approach to help children become ready for school. | | | | a result, I began to see other populations of the |
| Our average Headstart child was 2 years behind and | | | | communication-impaired differently and started setting |
| was within normal range after 20 sessions. | | | | goals for symptom free with all of my patient groups. |
| 2. School Age Speech-Language impaired Children | | | | From this research we learned how to make step by |
| We evaluated thousands of children as an outreach | | | | step plans to change the brain to reduce or eliminate |
| program to private schools and offered hospital based | | | | symptoms. |
| outpatient treatment for children who were having | | | | Turning Disability to Ability |
| trouble at school due to language processing disorders. | | | | We found that the fastest way to reach a symptom |
| 3. Stutterers | | | | free goal is to evaluate and train positive behaviors. |
| I treated thousands of stutterers world-wide and | | | | With stutterers for example, instead of working on |
| wrote Stutter-Free Speech (Charles Merrill Publishers), | | | | getting the stuttering to stop, we worked on teaching |
| which lead to awards from The White House and an | | | | the behaviors that would compete with stuttering and |
| Oprah interview. | | | | replace the behavior. Now we do that with the |
| 4. Brain Damaged Hospital Patients | | | | symptoms of autism. We teach the attention, memory |
| I provided rehabilitation team services to in-patients and | | | | and communication skills that compete with autism to |
| out-patients with brain injuries and strokes. My work | | | | replace the symptoms. As a result, we are able to turn |
| was honored by many federal agencies, and featured | | | | severe disability into life long ability. |