A Little About Me
25 years of experience. A long list of trainings. A serious soft spot for the kids most therapists find tricky.
I'm Jennifer Van Winkle, MS, CCC-SLP, and I founded The Speech Tree after 25 years in public schools. I left to do what I couldn't always do in a district setting: practice the way the research says I should. That means longer evaluations when they're warranted, shorter and more frequent sessions when the evidence calls for them, and clients I have the specific expertise to genuinely help.
My sessions are built one at a time. Every kid gets activities designed to pick up exactly where the last session ended, using content from their own world. Their curriculum, their books, their interests. Not worksheets from a folder, not a generic protocol.
I'm known for taking complex academic tasks, reading comprehension, written paragraphs, the tangled syntax of school texts, and breaking them into something a child can actually do. Then building back up from there. It's slow, careful, individualized teaching, and it's where I do my best work.
I'm also a strong advocate for parents. After two and a half decades of watching families navigate school systems, I know how to read an IEP, how to prepare for a meeting, and how to use evidence to push for what a child actually needs. Parents who work with me tend to leave feeling clearer about their child, their options, and their next move.
When I'm not with clients, I read (especially in French), travel (especially by boat), play piano, and run outside. I live in Stonington with my family and two small dogs.
"My job is to help your child communicate better. Yours is to know exactly what we're doing and why. We do both at the same time."
-Jennifer
Credentials
Certified by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
25+ years in public school settings
4 ACE Awards from ASHA for continuing education
STAR Award for Special Education, Amherst, MA (2015)
The Research I Lean On
Twenty-five years of continuing education adds up to a lot of specialized training. A few of the programs I use regularly:
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SPELL-LINKS to Reading & Writing™ for speech to print, all aspects of literacy–reading, writing, spelling,
speaking, listening, and vocabulary. -
EmPOWER Writing™ for structured, visually-supported writing instruction
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Unlocking Sentences for the complex syntax kids need in school
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Brain Frames® for visualizing language and organizing thinking
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Lively Letters™ for phonological awareness, decoding, and spelling
I also stay current on the research in stuttering, neurodiversity-affirming practices, and language-based literacy. (Research is, frankly, one of my favorite parts of the job.)
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