Throughout her life, Julie has had a passion for working with children. She babysat through high school and college, earned both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Illinois State University in Speech Language Pathology, and then began her career as a Speech Language Pathologist in the public schools. Julie’s clinical experiences have primarily included working with children in early childhood, elementary and junior high school.  

After many years as a public school SLP she noticed that many of the students on her caseload were presenting with the characteristics of Dyslexia. She advocated for those students, collaborated with other professionals to improve and create processes for early identification and treatment, and eventually led a team of Speech Language Pathologists trained to work specifically with students who required systematic and explicit instruction in literacy. As the Team Lead and a member of the Dyslexia Task Force she was responsible for helping select SPELL-Links for a pilot in 2017. She was instrumental in the success of the SPELL-Links pilot in a public school district and has supported her colleagues with their successful SPELL-Links implementation for the past several years.

Julie is passionate about literacy and in recent years has had a strong focus on reading and spelling, specifically working with students with dyslexia and learning disabilities. Julie is a SPELL-Links Certified Provider, having completed a full training program including a mentorship in order to obtain certification. She continues to participate in continuing education in order to further grow in her knowledge and skills and maintain certification status.   

Julie is an engaging communicator with a people-centric, compassionate nature. She strives to collaborate with and educate other professionals to provide prevention, early identification, and intervention for students with language literacy needs. She enjoys building strong professional relationships with children, families, and other professionals while advocating and educating others on speech, language, and literacy development. She is excited to have the opportunity to communicate and educate others to achieve success in the areas of speech, language, and literacy.