SPEAKER BIO'S

Michele Berg, PhD. Director, Center for Learning Disorders, Family Service & Guidance Center in Topeka, Kansas. The Center for Learning Disorders, formerly a part of Menninger Clinic is now a part of the Family Service and Guidance Center of Topeka, due to the Menninger Clinic relocating to Houston, Texas. A large number of Menninger psychologists and psychiatrists are also now at Family Service which continues to provide multidisciplinary evaluations for complex learning disorders, including Nonverbal Learning Disorder.

Scott Bezsylko, MA, is a co-director of the Nonverbal/Social and Emotional Disorders Case Study Project and CSEE Summer Institute faculty member. A graduate of the Teachers College, Columbia University, Mr. Bezsylko is former associate head of the Janus School. He is currently Headmaster of the Winston Preparatory School-a model socially and emotionally informed middle and high school for learning disabled students.

Montgomery Brower, MD, Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; Staff Psychiatrist, McLean Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts; Consulting Psychiatrist, Plymouth Juvenile Secure Unit, Department of Youth Services, Plymouth, Massachusetts; Independent Consultant, Community Access Board, Massachusetts Treatment Center, Department of Correction, Bridgewater, Massachusetts; Consulting Psychiatrist, Forensic Evaluation Service, Bedford Policy Institute, Allston, Massachusetts; Private Practice, specializing in forensic psychiatry and neuropsychiatry.

Paul Ekman, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of California at San Francisco . Ekman is a world-renowned expert in emotional research and nonverbal communication, particularly for his studies on emotional expression and the corresponding physiological activity of the face. His research has been supported by the National Institute of Mental Health for 46 years. He has also received support from the National Science Foundation, and he has organized an NSF workshop, "Understanding the Face." Among his distinguished lectures is a 1992 keynote address to the Japanese Congress of Psychology. Ekman is responsible for editing the new edition of Charles Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals ( Oxford 1998), to which he also contributed an important introduction and after word. The Nature of Emotion: Fundamental Questions (with R. Davidson, Oxford 1994) and What the Face Reveals: Basic and Applied Studies of Spontaneous Expression Using the Facial Action Coding System (with E. L. Rosenberg, Oxford 1998). His latest book is Emotions Revealed (Times Books, April, 2003).

Yvona Fast, MLS is a freelance journalist and a national disabilities advocacy consultant. Her work in learning disabilities and neurological impairments is based on her own personal experiences living with NLD as well as interviews with individuals who live with these disabilities. Her first book, Employment for Individuals with Asperger Syndrome or Non-verbal Learning Disability: Stories and Strategies, published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers, came out in the spring of 2004. She has a Master’s degree in Library Science from SUNY (Geneseo) and has written on many topics for various consumer magazines, including articles on career issues for Educational Opportunity and Minority Engineer. An adult with NLD, Yvona lives in beautiful northern New York State. NLD Adult and Author of Employment for Individuals with Asperger Syndrome or Non-Verbal Learning Disability Stories and Strategies.

Michelle Garcia Winner, MA, CCC is a speech language pathologist who specializes in the treatment of students with social cognitive deficits, which includes diagnoses such as Autism, Asperger syndrome and non-verbal learning disorder. She has a private practice in San Jose, California where she works with clients, consults with families and schools and she travels internationally giving workshops. Michelle has written two books entitled: “Inside out: What Makes The Person With Social Cognitive Deficits Tick” (2000) and has “Thinking About You, Thinking About Me (2002). The Gray Center also recently produced a video/DVD of Michelle’s work. Michelle’s goal is to help educators and parents appreciate how social thinking and social skills is an integral part of students academic as well as social experiences and that we can all do far more to help our students learn these abstract lessons.

Paul Grossman, JD has served for over twenty years as the chief regional attorney of the San Francisco office of the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights and is a nationally recognized authority on the topic of disability and higher education. He founded the disability law course at the University of California’s Hastings College of Law.

Diana Henry, OTR founder and president of Henry Occupational Therapy Services, Inc., opened her clinic in 1984, specializing in sensory integration (SI) and sensory processing, and developed occupational therapy (OT) programs for various school districts in Arizona, emphasizing a collaborative model. She earned the 1997 Outstanding Occupational Therapist Award from the Arizona Occupational Therapy Association. In 2000, Diana was nominated to be on the Advisory Board of the Non Verbal Learning Disability Association (NLDA). In 2003 she was made an honorary member of the Sensory Integration Network UK and Ireland.

Michael Levin, MD, specializes in developmental pediatrics and child psychiatry. He is in private practice in San Ramon, California. Dr. Levin was Medical Director of the University of Irvine Child Development Center before moving to Northern California. He has been on clinical faculty staff of Stanford University and University of California and is currently Medical Director of EastBay Psychopharmacology Group. The Reading Lesson was developed by Dr. Levin and his wife, Charan.

Meryl E. Lipton, MD, PhD, is a Behavioral Pediatric Neurologist, an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, and the Executive Director of the Rush Neurobehavioral Center (RNBC). Dr. Lipton specializes in the diagnosis, treatment, and neuropharmacology of children with neurobehavioral disorders. Specifically, Dr. Lipton conducts diagnostic evaluations, and provides treatment and case management of children with brain-based learning and behavioral problems.

Dr. Lipton received a B.S. in Education from Queens College of the City University of New York, as well as a M.S. in Special Education from Yeshiva University. After completing her degrees, she became a special education teacher who taught and trained special education teachers, and subsequently co-founded a school for regular and special education children.

Building on her interest in the brain-based issues of children, Dr. Lipton completed a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology at the University of Minnesota and an M.D. from the Medical College of Wisconsin. Meryl then completed a double residency in Pediatrics and Neurology at the University of Minnesota.

As director and founder of the Rush Neurobehavioral Center, Dr. Lipton built a multidisciplinary team that shared her interests in diagnosing and treating children with neurobehavioral issues. Today, the Center runs a diverse clinic where neuropsychologists, pediatric neurologists, psychologists, social workers, and learning disability specialists diagnose and treat a wide range of children.

A popular speaker, Dr. Lipton regularly presents to a variety of professional organizations, schools and lay groups.

Joan Lord, MA, has worked for the past ten years in the Sonoma Valley Unified School District in Sonoma, CA as a Special Day Class Teacher at both high school and elementary school levels. Prior to this, Mrs. Lord was a Speech/Language Specialist with the Sonoma County Office of Education, and has worked since 1981 in rehabilitation centers, schools, and private speech/language pathology practice in both California and her home state of Missouri. She received her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Linguistics from the University of Kansas, and her Master of Arts Degree in Communication Disorders from St. Louis University. Mrs. Lord holds a California Clinical Rehabilitation Services Credential, a Resource Specialist certificate, and a Private Practice License in Speech Pathology; she is also a member of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, the California Speech-Language-Hearing Association, and the California Association of Resource Specialists and Special Day Class Teachers. Mrs. Lord is also the mother of a teenage son who has a diagnosis of NLD. Her great passion is cold-water SCUBA diving.

Lisa Marti, BA, lives in Boulder Colorado. She has a BA in Sociology from the University of Colorado and has worked in sales and managed a non-profit agency. She has presented at conferences and written articles about NLD, most recently, Helping Children with Nonverbal Learning Disability: What I have learned from living with NLD (published in the Journal of Child Neurology, October 2004). She created and managed a website to help people with NLD and their families. She has struggled to manage executive function problems and, in an attempt to make her own life more manageable has developed some effective coping strategies for dealing with executive function deficits."

Emily Rubin, MS, CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist specializing in Autism, Asperger Syndrome, and related social learning disabilities. She is an adjunct faculty member and lecturer at the Yale Child Study Center where she has served as a member of their Autism and Developmental Disabilities Clinic and has provided consultation to several research projects investigating the neuropsychological and social-communicative profile of individuals with autism, Asperger’s syndrome, and Nonverbal Learning Disorders. She has also served as a part-time instructor for the Communication Sciences and Disorders Department of Emerson College in Boston, MA where she has provided instruction for graduate level students in the appropriate framework for determining assessment techniques, therapeutic objectives, and intervention strategies for students with pragmatic language disorders. As the director of Communication Crossroads, a private practice in Carmel, California, she provides consultations to various educational programs serving children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and social learning disabilities. She is co-authoring a clinical/educational manual for the SCERTS Model along with her colleagues (Barry Prizant, Amy Wetherby, Amy Laurent & Pat Rydell), which will be published by 2005. Her current clinical and research interests include early identification of social-communication disabilities and the relationship between learning style and later social competence.

Herb Schreier, MD, is with the department of psychiatry at Children's Hospital Research Institute Oakland, and has been interested in NLD since 1985. He is a renowned author, teacher and expert on NLD and other neurocognitive disorders and has presented on the needs of these children at the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and abroad in such places as Japan, China, France and Israel at the International conference of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Margaret Semrud-Clikeman, PhD, is a professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. She was recently awarded Fellow status from the National Academy of Neuropsychology. Her Master's Degree is from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. She was a school psychologist in Wisconsin for 13 years prior to beginning her doctoral education. Margaret completed a neuroscience fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital/McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School. She was awarded the early career award for contribution in clinical neuropsychology from the National Academy of Neuropsychology in 1999. She has published 3 books, over 50 chapters, and over 50 articles. Her current interests include the neuroanatomical and neuropsychological underpinnings of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and developmental disorders, interventions, and issues in training of school psychologists.

Kim Tillery, PhD, CCC-A, AssociateProfessor at SUNY, Fredonia, has authored one chapter and co-authored four chapters regarding Auditory Processing Disorders (APDs) and the relationship of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders (ADHD). Invited international, national and state presentations include her published research regarding 1) Ritalin’s effects on APD, 2) APD therapeutic measures, and 3) the co-morbidity of attention and learning deficits with APD. Dr. Tillery has written an article, The Relationship of Learning, Attention Deficits and Auditory Processing Disorders, which refers to her research in the relationship between APD & NLD.

Kytja Voeller, MD, is a board-certified pediatrician and neurologist (with special competence in Child Neurology) who also has had a Behavioral Neurology fellowship. (Behavioral Neurology is that branch of Neurology that deals with brain functions involved in learning and behavior). She is the Director of WINSi – the Western Institute for Neurodevelopmental Studies and Interventions). WINSi is a multidisciplinary program, staffed by a psychologist, neuropsychologists, a child psychiatrist, a speech-language pathologist, and an occupational therapist. The Institute conducts multidisciplinary diagnostic assessments on children and adults with a broad range of learning and behavior problems. One component of the program involves an intensive program for cognitive rehabilitation of dyslexia. Another aspect of the program involves working with families and schools to help children and adults with nonverbal learning disabilities function more effectively.

Sarah Rozehnal Ward, MS, CCC/SLP is a speech and language pathologist who specializes in the evaluation and treatment of students and adults who present with cognitive and executive function based difficulties. She has lectured extensively on the topic of executive functions to parents, professionals and educators. Over 80% of the caseload in her busy private practice is dedicated to the development and implementation of comprehensive treatment plans for students who present with nonverbal learning disabilities.