Meet Your Speech-Language Pathologist

Kristina boccardo, M.S., CCC-SLP

Kristina Boccardo, M.S., CCC-SLP holds a certificate of clinical competence (CCC) from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and a California State license as a practicing Speech-Language Pathologist. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Speech and Hearing Sciences from State University of New York at Cortland, and a Masters of Science degree in Speech-Language Pathology from Nazareth College of Rochester, where she specialized in speech therapy for individuals who are Deaf or hard-of-hearing.

Kristina is highly trained and experienced with the diagnosis and treatment of speech and language disorders such as language delays, speech sound disorders, autism, social skill deficits, communication deficits due to hearing loss, stuttering, and orofacial myofunctional therapy. She is also trained in augmentative and alternative communication techniques (AAC).

Kristina is especially passionate about working with early intervention and school-aged clients. She believes in collaborating with caregivers and other professionals to ensure carry-over of skills and successful outcomes from therapy. Kristina focuses on educating and empowering parents to be their child’s best teacher and to embed speech and language activities into daily life in a way that is fun and effective for the whole family.

Specialty Certifications:

• Hanen: It Takes Two To Talk

  • A family-focused early intervention program for children with expressive and receptive language delays

• Hanen: More Than Words

  • A parent education program for children on the Autism Spectrum or with social communication delays

• Hanen: Target Word

  • A parent education program for children with expressive language delays

• PROMPT Trained (Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets)

  • A tactile-kinesthetic approach that uses touch cues to a client’s articulators (jaw, tongue, lips) to manually guide them through a targeted word, phrase or sentence. Develops motor control and development of proper oral muscular movements, while eliminating unnecessary muscle movements, such as jaw sliding and inadequate lip rounding

• Simon Says

  • Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy

  • Tongue Tips (retrains the muscles of face and tongue for proper posture within the mouth to eliminate tongue thrusting)

  • Tiny Tongue Tips (play-based early intervention program to establish proper oral and facial postures at rest)

  • Thumbs Up (pacifier and thumb sucking elimination program)

• Trained in Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy through The Breathe Institute

  • BreatheMyo Workshop

• Deafness Specialist Certification from Nazareth College

• Conversationally proficient in American Sign Language