A Little Bit About Us

Meghan Gallahan Graham, MS, CCC-SLP  graduated from Ithaca College in 2004 with a Bachelor of Science  degree in Teachers of Students with Speech and Hearing Disabilities. She then went on to Boston University where she received her Masters of Science degree in Speech and Language Pathology. Meghan then was hired by Children’s Therapy Associates in Natick, MA, a pediatric multi-disciplinary clinic where she serves a range of children with various communication profiles. Meghan also has experience working in both public and private school settings, where she enjoys collaborating with other educators. One of Meghan’s passions is technology and how to use it therapeutically, which has led her to the wonderful world of apps and app development, and all4mychild.  She is currently the Director of Technology Services at CTA, and enjoys sharing her passion with colleagues and families. Meghan has been supervising graduates students at the clinic over the past several years, and now is taking on supervision at the Boston University Clinic, as part-time faculty.

 

Jill Perry, MHA, MS, OTR/L graduated in 1978 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Special Education.  While teaching and working in a community health center, she developed a social pragmatics group with a speech-language pathologist and there fell in love with the idea that two (or more) frames of reference were better than one.  Jill went on to earn a Master’s degree in Occupational Therapy from Boston University in 1985 and became certified in administering the Southern California Sensory Integration Test; the original Sensory Integration test developed by Dr. Jean Ayres.  She has worked in hospitals, public schools, collaboratives, and private practice clinics as a pediatric OT and supervisor and taught at Leslie College as an adjunct professor.  Jill joined Children’s Therapy Associates in 1996, which was founded by 3 SLPs with a vision of creating a multi-disciplinary freestanding clinic.  After developing the OT practice at CTA, Jill became a partner and has been dedicated to serving children and their families in the Boston area.  Jill received the Margaret L. Bauman award for Outstanding Therapist Provider to the autism community in 1998.  She was selected as a LEND fellow (Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disorders) in 2002 and went on to earn her Master’s in Health Administration through Suffolk University in 2005.  She became a practitioner with Integrated Listening Systems (iLs) and The Listening Program (TLP) and is enjoying adding the listening aspect to her therapy.  Over the years, Jill has developed a special interest in and experience with children who have non-verbal learning disabilities, autistic spectrum disorders, and/or sensory processing disorders.  The challenges they share in social situations are complex and best addressed in a collaborative manner.  Jill has found that working on these challenges through social pragmatics groups has been most successful for children and families and thus most satisfying.  Developing the Social Adventures App through a new, collaborative company, all4mychild.com with Meghan and Karen has been a rewarding and powerful culmination of her years of service.

 

Karen Samstad Head, MS, CCC-SLP graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry in 1984.  While she enjoyed the intellectual challenge of a career in pure science, she found that she craved more “people” time and soon found herself volunteering with a variety of agencies, including teaching English as a Second Language and providing respit for caretakers in a group home for children in the foster system.  Through these experiences, Karen learned of the field of Speech Language Pathology and soon entered the Master’s Program at Emerson College, where she received a degree in 1991.  Karen began her SLP career working at Franciscan’s Hospital for Children in Brighton, Massachusetts where she worked with children struggling with emotional-behavioral challenges in addition to their learning differences.   She then moved to another area hospital where she was given the challenge of managing one of the hospital’s  satellite clinics.  Shortly afterward, Karen joined together with 2 other SLP’s to found Children’s Therapy Associates in Natick, Massachusetts.    The founding partners’ vision was to create a multi-disciplinary clinic and to that end, Jill Perry  joined the partnership and has been the Director of Occupational Therapy ever since.  While Karen has always enjoyed working with children with a variety of learning challenges, her passion has always been with those experiencing social challenges. She has been Group Coordinator of the Social Adventures Group Program since its inception in the late 90′s, and has enjoyed co-leading groups since that time. Over these almost 14 years, the Social Adventures Program has become more clearly defined and Karen, along with her colleagues, Meghan and Jill, decided to make this innovative program available to therapists, teachers and parents as an app.  It was to this end, that in 2011, Karen joined with Jill and Meghan to found a new partnership, all4mychild.

 
Social Adventures Program:  As speech and language pathologists and occupational therapists, the collaborative approach we have used for years has led to extraordinary changes in the kids with whom we work. Over the course of those years, we have shared a common passion in searching for better ways to make therapy as salient and meaningful as possible. Through our work at Children’s Therapy Associates, we have experienced firsthand that the whole is definitely better than the sum of its parts!!

Social skills development can be a rocky road for many children…we like to call it a “Social Adventure.” When given concrete and creative means to learn about and practice social communication and friendship, the journey can be fun rather than confusing and frightening. One passion we all share is leading groups to facilitate and enhance social cognition. Another is introducing technology as a motivational learning medium wherever and whenever we can.

As many of you know, the introduction of the iPad has led to an absolute explosion of creativity for new therapy activities! We have found technology to be a wonderful means to collaborate and learn from and with each other, regardless of background, education, or training. Technology has become a common and accessible connection for parents, teachers, and therapists in helping children learn. For some time now, we have been incorporating the use of apps in our individual and group therapy. We are now ready to jump into development ourselves.

Our first app, Social Adventures, was launched on October 17, 2011. We are so excited to use it ourselves to make our groups more fun, motivating and productive. Although we have no idea where technology will lead us we are convinced that it will be a fantastic Social Adventure and we hope you will join us for the ride!

Meghan Graham, M.S., CCC-SLP
Jill Perry, MHA, MS, OTR/L
Karen Head, M.S., CCC-SLP 

 

One Response to Meghan, Karen and Jill

  1. Using iPads for Autism: Are There Still Too Many Questions? says:
    February 18, 2012 at 12:41 am

    [...] it’s too much, and kids get overly focused on things that jingle and jangle,” said Karen Head, who has created apps to develop children’s social interaction skills. “As a therapist, [...]