About Apraxia Kids

Sarah White is a nonprofit consultant with over 15 years of experience working in finance, administration, development, and communications for social service, health care, higher education, and other nonprofit organizations.  Her experience and MBA in Nonprofit Management give Sarah a unique perspective on how each aspect of a nonprofit – from program service delivery and website development, to technology and human resources (and everything in between) – impacts an organization’s bottom line and its ability to accomplish its mission.  Sarah is also fluent in Spanish and has experience living and working in Mexico.  Sarah is a native Texan where she lives with her husband and daughter who has Childhood Apraxia of Speech.  In her free time, Sarah enjoys reading, volunteering, and traveling.

Lou LaVecchia joined Apraxia Kids as a board member in 2016.  His son Jayden was diagnosed with severe Apraxia of speech at 4 years old, presently Jayden has been declared resolved.  Lou has a proven record of working with his school district to improve the appropriate services for children in need of speech services.  He has presented seminars at the 2017, 2018 and 2019 Apraxia Kids National Conferences.  He works to raise awareness through local events, including attending walks for Apraxia.

Lou achieved a Bachelor of Science in Business Management and Organization from the University of Central Connecticut.  He currently is the vice president of All Seasons Landscaping Inc. (ASL) a construction company located in Connecticut.  There he is responsible for coordinating and directing all field operations as well as managing all administrative operations.

Alyson is a graduate from Emory University with a degree in Political Science and Spanish. She was a former child with Apraxia and now serves as an adult advocate. Understanding the firsthand struggles, she is dedicated to apraxia awareness and assisting families facing the disorder. She enjoys attending and speaking at Apraxia Kids Events, as well as writing her next Apraxia-related blog post. She previously volunteered with Girl Scouts of America as a Troop Leader and Girl Scout Gold Award Committee Member. In her free time, she loves reading, going to the movies, and watching the San Francisco 49ers hopefully winning a game.

Edwin Maas received a masters degree in neurolinguistics from the University of Groningen (the Netherlands), and worked as a clinical linguist at the Rotterdam Aphasia Foundation before pursuing his Ph.D. in language and communicative disorders from San Diego State University and the University of California, San Diego. His early research focused on verb and sentence processing in aphasia and basic mechanisms of sentence comprehension. His interest in treatment research led him to shift focus to speech production and its disorders. To supplement his background and training in neurolinguistics, he obtained postdoctoral training at Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a focus on speech motor control. He joined Temple University’s Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders in 2015.

As Co-Director of the Speech, Language, and Brain Laboratory (SLAB Lab), he conducts research on speech production across the lifespan in unimpaired individuals and in various populations with speech and/or language disorders, such as aphasia, apraxia of speech, and phonological disorders.

He holds a Masters in Healthcare Management and Bachelors in Political Science. Claudio is currently a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives, active with the CT ACHE chapter and serves on the Board of Directors of the New England Society for Healthcare Strategy.

Mark Conroe grew up as the second of 4 children; his dad was in the military.  He attended West Point for 2 years and then transferred to Stanford University where he received a BS and MS in Civil Engineering.  He was a varsity athlete in college (tennis player) and worked with kids while attending college.  After working for 2 years, he then went back to get his MBA at Stanford University.  Upon graduation in 1985, he has spent the past 33 years working for both regional and national real estate development companies.  He has managed companies which built billions of dollars of projects (as the President, CEO, managing partner).  He has built several companies from ground up, growing one to 75 employees and another to 50 employees.  He has built real estate projects throughout the US (in 30 cities).  He has built and managed his own firm for the past 18 years.  He has been married for almost 10 years and has two boys, ages 7 and 8.  His 8-year-old has apraxia.  He was diagnosed at 2 years old.  He attended many therapy sessions for speech, fine motor and gross motor skills until he was about 5 years old.  He still has some issues but overall has done exceptionally well in working with his apraxia.

Stephanie Fera is an associate practicing in the firm’s public sector labor, employment, and municipal group.  Prior to joining CFWW+S, Stephanie was employed by other Pittsburgh law firms handling civil litigation and labor and employment matters.   In the course of her practice, she has successfully represented clients in a variety of matters in the Pennsylvania state and federal courts.  She has counseled clients relating to discrimination and harassment claims, wrongful termination, and policies and procedures of employment.  She has represented counties and municipal clients in grievance arbitration, collective bargaining, interest arbitration, and unemployment compensation matters.

Stephanie obtained her law degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.  While there she served as executive editor of the University of Pittsburgh Law Review.  She also served as a teaching assistant in legal writing.  Prior to law school, she obtained her undergraduate degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and spent several years in retail management where her role involved various human resource functions and responsibilities.  That experience prompted her interest in practicing labor and employment law.  Stephanie was named a Pennsylvania Super Lawyers Rising Star in 2017 and 2018.

Dr Fernando is a Board Certified Pediatrician practicing at the University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital. He and his wife have three children, the oldest of whom has CAS. Dr Fernando joined the Board of Directors of Apraxia Kids in 2017 after he realized that the pediatric medical community does not do a great job of recognizing or educating on childhood speech development and disorders. He has used his experience in advocacy for children’s health to start to work on advancing pediatricians’ understanding of speech development and disorders. His son uses an AAC device and he has strengthened his knowledge in the area of AAC as well as becoming an expert to better help his patients’ families navigate the IEP process.

Prior to joining the University of Chicago, Dr Fernando was the Chair of Pediatrics at Crusader Community Health, a Federally Qualified Health Center in Rockford, IL. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois College of Medicine and completed his residency at Stony Brook Long Island Children’s Hospital where he also served as Chief Resident. He has been involved at multiple levels of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) including graduating from the Young Physician Leadership Alliance program and serves on the educational and legislative subcommittees of the Illinois Chapter of the AAP. At the University of Chicago he has won multiple teaching awards, serving as a teaching attending for both pediatric residents as well as medical students. He has made it his mission to make sure that the pediatric trainees have a keen understanding of speech development in children and works to dispel speech development myths and misconceptions in the field of pediatrics.

Mr. Mills holds a B.S. degree in Mathematical Economics from the United States Military Academy at West Point and an M.B.A from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. After graduating from the United States Military Academy, Mr. Mills served in the United States Army as an aviation officer. Prior to joining RCF in May, 2016, Mr. Mills held positions in various fundraising and client services, including most recently as Managing Director at Brooklands Capital Strategies, a division of TPG and Ares Management. Prior to Brookland Capital, he was the Head of Investor Relations and Marketing at Oak Hill Capital, and started in the industry with Probitas Partners.
“First and foremost, I am interested in helping in any way I can! My background is in organizational leadership, operational efficiency, marketing and business development over the last 25 years. I have learned and hopefully enhanced these skills both in the Army and in the private sector, primarily in financial services (private equity) firms.”

Derrick Peavy joined Apraxia Kids as a board member in 2019.  His daughter Elizabeth was diagnosed with Dyspraxia and Apraxia of speech at 4 years old.  Derrick has volunteered for several non profit organizations as both staff and a board officer.

Derrick achieved a Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies from Georgia State University.  He is an independent information technology consultant.

Amber, a Manager in the Assurance & Advisory Group at Grossman Yanak & Ford LLP, has more than six years of experience in public accounting. She specializes in providing assurance services for a variety of clients including manufacturers and not-for-profit organizations. She also has experience with construction accounting, business acquisition transaction work and performing audits of employee benefit plans.

Amber earned a B.S. degree in accounting and finance in 2013, graduating summa cum laude from St. Vincent College. A certified public accountant (CPA) licensed in the state of Pennsylvania, Amber is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants (PICPA).

Amber resides in Greensburg, PA with her husband, Joey, and daughter, Addison.

Matthew Stevens lives in central Arkansas and is a healthcare professional that works within the senior living industry. He is husband to a beautiful wife and father to two children, one of whom was diagnosed with Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) in 2018. Since that time, Matthew has made it his mission to be 100% invested in the advocacy of those on similar journeys, and he is particularly passionate about encouraging the father’s involvement. Matthew believes, “CAS will not define our son, but rather provide the platform to allow him the confidence to conquer anything in this life.” He has presented at the Apraxia Kids National Conference in 2018 and been a Board Member with Apraxia Kids since 2019.

Board Member Emerita.

Amy is a treatment clinician and CARES representative at Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota. She has extensive experience working with children with developmental delays, motor speech disorders, autism spectrum disorders, and language disorders. She holds her Certificate of Clinical Competency and is licensed in Minnesota. She has been responsible for providing supervision for other speech-language pathologists and graduate students.

In addition to PROMPT training, she has post graduate training and experience in auditory processing, Fast ForWord, Relationship Development Intervention (RDI), childhood apraxia of speech, and feeding. Past experience included work with adults and junior high school students. Amy has a special interest in motor speech disorders.

Elaine Dolgin-Lieberman, MA, CCC-SLP, is a pediatric speech language pathologist working in private practice, with special interest in treating children with motor speech sound disorders. She is a graduate of Apraxia Kids’s Intensive Training Institute (Boot Camp) 2011 and is recognized by Apraxia Kids as having Advanced Training and Clinical Expertise in Childhood Apraxia of Speech. Elaine is a graduate supervisor and Professional Instructor in the Graduate Communication Disorders Program at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry where she teaches an annual summer elective on Childhood Apraxia of Speech. Elaine has provided workshops on evidenced- based therapy strategies locally and at Apraxia Kids National Conferences. Elaine is a member of the Professional Advisory Council.

Maria Grigos, PhD CCC-SLP is an Associate Professor and Chair in the Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders at New York University. Dr. Grigos directs the Motor Speech Laboratory at NYU. Her scholarly work uses kinematic, acoustic and perceptual methods and pursues two lines of research. The first examines speech motor development in children with speech sound disorders, which includes studying the efficacy of motor-based speech intervention for children with apraxia of speech. The second examines changes in speech production and facial movement in adults following facial transplant surgery, together with an interdisciplinary team from the NYU Langone Health System. Dr. Grigos holds clinical certification from the American Speech, Language and Hearing Association, and is licensed in speech-language pathology in New York State.

Dr. Iuzzini-Seigel received her B.F.A in Studio Art and Socio-Cultural Anthropology at SUNY at Binghamton and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Speech and Hearing Science at Indiana University-Bloomington. She joined the faculty at Marquette University in the fall of 2015. Dr. Iuzzini-Seigel’s research centers on speech development and its disorder with specific focus on Childhood Apraxia of Speech. She is the Director of the Communication, Movement, and Learning Lab where she aims to identify factors that contribute to disorder onset and resolution for children with communication disorders. Her current research takes a multilevel approach to determine the relation among procedural learning and speech, language, and motor deficits in children with Childhood Apraxia of Speech. Dr. Iuzzini-Seigel is also interested in communication and motor performance in bilingual individuals, including bilingual children with communication disorders.

Rebecca received a B.S. (Psychology, 1973) from Louisiana State University, and an M.A. (Social Sciences, 1974) and Ph.D. (Psychology: Cognition and Communication, 1981) from the University of Chicago. She completed postdoctoral training at the University of Arizona and Johns Hopkins University before joining the faculty at University of Vermont in 1986.  During her 23-year tenure at UVM, she achieved the rank of Professor and served in several administrative capacities. In 2008, Rebecca joined Ohio State at the rank of Professor and since 2009 has served as chair of the Graduate Studies Committee.  Her research/teaching interests focus on assessment and treatment of children’s communication disorders, especially speech sound disorders.  She has authored and co-edited numerous publications, including 6 books, and is director of the Children’s Communications Laboratory. Rebecca holds the ASHA CCC-SLP, is an ASHA Fellow, a Board Recognized Specialist in Child Language, and a former associate editor of AJSLP.

Dr. Megan Overby, an Associate Professor at Duquesne University, specializes in childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), speech sound disorders, literacy, and telepractice. She has over 20 years of experience as a speech-language pathologist in schools, hospitals, agencies, and university clinics in addition to having maintained a private practice. Dr. Overby’s research in CAS has focused on potential early red flags of the disorder, its social consequences, and associations between CAS and literacy development. In addition, she was the primary investigator in a grant-funded study of the home language environment of young children with CAS. She presents regularly at conferences and workshops on assessment and literacy topics related to CAS and has published her research in multiple journals and textbook chapters. At Duquesne, Dr. Overby teaches courses in speech sound development and assessment.