About me
Hi, and welcome! My name is Bobbi Michelle and I am a native English speaker from California.
I love helping others, learning foreign languages, and all things related to speech pronunciation. I’ve blended my passions to form my career, which is helping individuals who speak (or are learning) English as a second language and feel their accent is preventing them from reaching their full professional and/or personal potential. If you can relate to this I’d be delighted to work with you!
In my free time I enjoy playing various musical instruments, practicing martial arts & yoga, watching and reading foreign movies & books, rollerblading & jogging with friends, learning new skills such as web design / home improvement / drawing, spending quality time with my family, and meeting new people- such as you, hopefully!
Education
Master of Arts degree
with Honors, in
Speech-Language Pathology (major)
&
Audiology (minor)
Bachelor of Science degree
with Honors, in
Communication Sciences and Disorders
Certifications & License
The National Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology
This is the most widely recognized symbol of quality for SLPs, and allows one to diagnose and treat communication differences and disorders, including difficulties with speaking, listening, understanding language, reading, writing, social skills, stuttering and using voice
Awarded by the American Speech-Language Hearing Association
Verify my ASHA Certification here (account #12042273)
Clinical & Rehabilitative Services Credential
Awarded by the state of California Commission on Teacher Credentialing
California SLP license
Granted by the state of California Department of Consumer Affairs
Experience
Before providing accent modification classes online I provided in-home family-centered speech/language therapy to nonverbal children for two years. All of them, including those who initially communicated only by grunting and gesturing, were speaking in full sentences within a few months of working with me. On average, they achieved >3 months of expressive language growth per month.
Prior to that, I successfully provided individualized speech-language testing, diagnoses, treatment plans, and therapy for adults and children in private clinics, hospitals, and schools. Helping these clients with speech/language disorders requires such a high level of technical expertise that modifying accents, in comparison, is very easy for me! Their communication disorders were due to the following diagnoses/conditions:
- Childhood Apraxia of Speech - a neurological disorder that causes difficulty coordinating the muscles of your mouth/throat when speaking
- Aphasia - difficulty understanding and saying words and sentences due to a stroke
- Down syndrome
- Brain injury
- Language disorders - difficulty with vocabulary, grammar, and/or social skills)
- Speech articulation disorders
- Fluency & Stuttering
- Voice disorders
- Social anxiety
- Autism
- Phonological disorders - difficulty understanding the speech rules of a language and/or pronouncing certain letter combinations
- Dysarthria - a nervous system disorder causing weakness / paralysis of the mouth / tongue / throat
- Cognitive impairment
- Hearing impairment