Karen Moller Kern, M.A, CCC-SLP - Evaluation Coordinator

Karen received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Scranton. She worked in the publishing industry for 3 years before pursuing her Master of Arts degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders from Montclair State University. Karen has had the pleasure of working at Creative Speech Solutions, LLC since 2002. Prior to that, she was on staff at St. Joseph’s Hospital for 3 years.

While at St. Joseph’s, Karen had the opportunity to evaluate and treat both adults and children with a variety of speech and language disorders, including voice disorders, phonological/articulation disorders, apraxia of speech, dysarthria, language delays and disorders, aphasia and fluency disorders. During this time, she found that she especially enjoyed working with young children, and was particularly interested in treating children with apraxia of speech.

Karen has been trained in PROMPT (Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets) since 1999. She is also trained in LINKS to Language™, Sara Rosenfeld-Johnson’s muscle-based (oral-motor) speech therapy programs and Lori Overland’s feeding program. Karen has attended multiple conferences and training workshops on the subject of apraxia of speech with leaders in the field, including Deborah Hayden, Nancy Kaufman, Edythe Strand, Pamela Marshalla, David Hammer and Ruth Stoeckel. She has also taken continuing education courses on a variety of other topics, including feeding disorders, sensory integration dysfunction, auditory processing dysfunction, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, oral-motor weakness/dysfunction and tongue thrust. Karen is certified by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and licensed by the State of New Jersey.

Karen has two children with special needs, so she has had the unique experience of treating and mothering special needs children. As a mother, she has first-hand experience with the Early Intervention assessment and treatment process, Child Study Team evaluations, occupational and physical therapy evaluations and therapy, IEP meetings, and neurodevelopmental evaluations. She knows how difficult and frustrating it can be to transport children to therapy sessions every week, to fit therapy homework into a hectic schedule, to handle a child with sensory integration dysfunction, to advocate for a child with special needs, and to fight with insurance companies for coverage. She knows the heartbreak a parent feels watching his or her child struggle to do things that come easily to other children. She also knows the pleasure of watching a child overcome his or her difficulties with the help of knowledgeable, talented, and loving therapists and teachers.