Empowering Every Voice
I have always thought of communication as an integral aspect of life, and my love for speech pathology is aided by my need to “communicate” incessantly.
As a certified Audiologist and Speech Therapist from Mumbai, India, I completed my Master’s Degree in Speech-Language Pathology at University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1990. Following that, I completed my Clinical Fellowship Year and subsequent 4 years of employment at, what was then, the NYU Medical Center (currently NYU Langone Health). This solidified my experience working with adults and children, who had incurred strokes and other brain injuries, leading to language and cognitive communication disorders. This is also where I realized my love for working with children, including premature infants in the NICU, who had feeding difficulties. This led me to years of specializing in all things related to pediatric communication and feeding difficulties.
I worked with Early Intervention in Long Island and NYC, worked on evaluations and treatment through the Board of Education, worked in private practices and in schools for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and supervised Graduate students at Adelphi University. My love for empowering children to communicate is rivaled only by my need to share my knowledge with other clinicians, which led me to mentoring countless students, Clinical Fellows and therapists.
I returned to NYU Langone Health in 2013 and served as Supervisor of the Pediatric Speech-language Pathology department for 12 years, which was a culmination of all things I loved about being a pediatric speech-language pathologist. I was able to treat children in inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation, collaborate with a multi-disciplinary
team, grow programs to enrich the lives of children and their families and mentor a growing department of talented pediatric speech-language pathologists.
Working with children and their families, watching them achieve their potential to become efficient communicators and successful eaters is the part of my job that brings me the greatest joy. I often have difficulty remembering the names of parents, but can
seamlessly recall the names of all the children I have worked with over the years.
My approach to therapy has always been pragmatic and functional. The skills I choose to work on with the children I treat are always related to their daily lives and functions, which make collaborating with families and meeting them where they are in their journey most essential for success.