Developmental & Relationship-Based Strategies in the Home – Part 2

Sherri Cawn, MA, CCC-SLP, clinical director of Cawn-Krantz and Associates Developmental Therapies (with locations in Chicago and Northbrook, Il), has over 40 years of clinical pediatric experience specializing in the assessment and treatment of infants, toddlers, and school-age children. She is a leading practitioner of the DIR/Floortime® model in speech and language development and conducts trainings other professionals throughout the US and overseas on the concepts of this model. Sherri is the author of the self study DVD/Manual on the Assessment and Intervention of DIR/Floortime® produced by the American Speech and Hearing Association in 2011 and the self study DVD on the Assessment/Intervention of Developmental Language (2013)., In addition she is a co-author of Language Disorders chapter in the Diagnostic Manual for Infancy and Early Childhood and she is a co-author of the Profectum Parent Toolbox, (March 2016) an online free webcast series for parents and caretakers. Sherri is a senior faculty member of the ICDL DIR FT, the Profectum (DIR/FT) Academy Online Training Program and adjunct faculty at the Erikson Institute. She received her graduate and undergraduate degrees from the University of Illinois.

Lisa deFaria has a Masters in Social Work (MSW) and is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) and Board Certified Diplomat (BCD) in Clinical Social Work. For over 20 years Lisa has been providing quality psychotherapeutic services for adults, parents, teens and children. She has recently relocated from California to Washington State, and offers private therapeutic services on Bainbridge Island. In addition to general psychotherapeutic services, Lisa has a specialty in child development, specific to infants and children, 0-5 with neurodevelopmental challenges and other special needs, including autism spectrum disorders, difficulties with self-regulation, attending and focusing and those with emerging emotional, behavioral and learning challenges. She is a Senior Clinician Certified in DIR (Developmental, Individualized and Relationship-Based) approach, featuring the child and family "Floortime" developmental play therapy model for supporting the growth, development and learning of young children with special needs. Lisa also is Certified in pre- and-post adoption counseling by the Kinship Centers of California. Lisa has trained and worked extensively with Drs. Stanley Greenspan and Serena Wieder’s DIR® (“Developmental, Individualized, Relationship-Based”) and “Floortime” models for the last 18 years. She was on faculty with the "Interdisciplinary Council on Developmental and Learning Disorders" (ICDL), and was an Associate Professor with the ICDL Graduate PhD program in Early Childhood Development. While in California Lisa was also an Adjunct Faculty member of the University of California Santa Cruz, Extension. Regional community-based services provided while in California included developmental programming consultation and in-service training focusing on pro-active and positive intervention approaches for Early Start/Infant Intervention programs, preschools, elementary/high schools and inclusion programs. These have included: The Children's Health Council, Palo Alto, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz County Early Start, No. Monterey County State Preschools, Monterey County Office of Education and Infant Development Program, Monterey County Family Service Agency, San Jose’s PACE Preschool, and the Pajaro, Carmel and Pacific Grove Unified School Districts, San Jose's Creekside School and the Soaring Eagle Academy, Riverside, Illinois. A CEITAN grant recipient and former member of the Monterey County Family and Children’s Commission’s First Five Subcommittee on Children with Special Needs, Lisa has long been an advocate for children with challenges and their families and was a recipient of The Special Kids Crusade "Reach for the Stars" award, honoring individuals and agencies that support children with special needs. Lisa graduated with Honors from the University of Southern California’s School of Social Work, and participated in a two-year Post Graduate Fellowship in Clinical Social Work at Cedar-Sinai Medical Center’s Thalians Mental Health Center working in the Family and Children's Outpatient Clinic and Infant and Early Child Development Centers, in Los Angeles.. Lisa is an accredited member of the International Association for Play Therapy, the American Board of Examiners in Clinical Social Work, the National Association for Social Work and the Washington Society for Clinical Social Workers.

Celebrate the Children’s founder, Monica G. Osgood, is an experienced behavioral consultant and therapist who specializes in using developmental approaches to support children with autism and other differences in relating and communicating. She is also the Founder and Director of the Developmental Center for Children and Families and Executive Director and a founding member of the Profectum Foundation. Monica has worked in homes, therapy centers, and private and public school settings for over 20 years. Some of her experience has included assessment and the development of intervention programs, curriculum and IEP development, and parent and professional training. In 1998, Monica created the first public school program with the Developmental Individual Relationship-based (DIR model) approach as the core philosophy. ​In 2000, she was the first educator to join the senior faculty of the Interdisciplinary Council on Development and Learning(ICDL) to provide interdisciplinary training in the DIR model. During her time with ICDL, Monica served as faculty for all of their yearly training institutes, spoke at many of their conferences and had the opportunity to work closely and collaborate with Drs. Greenspan and Wieder to further develop the DIR model in school settings. ​In 2004, she collaborated with Lauren Blaszak to open a state-approved, DIR model school for children ages 3-21 in Denville, New Jersey, now serving over 70 school districts and 130 families. Additional accomplishments include, many speaking engagements at conferences and participation in television, radio and newspaper interviews across the USA, Wales, Ireland and Amsterdam. Monica has appeared on Welsh Channel 4 and BBC1 documentaries, sharing the DIR model approach with British parents and professionals. Monica and the Celebrate the Children school were featured in a TIME Magazine cover story in May of 2006. ​She serves on the Advisory Board for 3LPlace and the National Advisory Council for The Centers for Exceptional Children​. Monica also serves on the Economic Development Advisory Council and the Sustainable Economic Development Plan Steering Committee for her local Town Council. Finally, she collaborated with twice Grammy nominated children’s artists Dan Myers and Brady Rymer on an album and music video celebrating diversity in children with all abilities released April 2011. https://www.monicaosgood.com/

Nora D’Angiola is a speech-language pathologist from Buenos Aires, Argentina. She has specialized in Psycholinsguitiscs, in language development and language disorders, in programs of Transdisciplinary Assessment and Intervention in Early Childhood and in particular, in working with infants and children with pervasive developmental disorders. She has experience as a clinician as well as a university professor and researcher, both in Argentina as in the USA, where she has resided for more than 15 years. Nora has been an attending clinician at Children’s Hospital in Buenos Aires and has been on the staff at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, CA, and at the Pasadena Unified School District, CA. She has been a professor at UMSA (Universidad del Museo Social Argentino) in Buenos Aires, at CSUN (California State University, Northridge, CA ) and has been a research assistant at NPI, UCLA. Nora is a member of ASHA (American Speech and hearing Association). She holds a DIR Certificate and served as a Training Leader at ICDL. She has co-coordinated numerous trainings in the DIR/Floortime Model in Argentina, both at FLENI and at UAI (Universidad Abierta Interamericana), in Buenos Aires and across the country. She provides DIR model-based interventions to children and their families and supervises and consults with professional teams working with children with special needs. She is a visiting professor at UMSA.