Ellen McSpadden, MA CCC-SLP

Ellen's skill set and knowledge surrounding Childhood Apraxia of Speech is incredible. She is trained in DTTC and implements it with fidelity. As a speech therapist myself, I am always impressed at Ellen's knowledge surrounding speech sound disorders, apraxia, phonological processing errors, dyslexia, stuttering, and evidenced based treatments. Ellen is able to answer any speech related question with clarity. Not only is she extremely intelligent and knowledgeable, but she is also incredibly warm and welcoming. My son enjoys his sessions and makes fantastic progress under the care of Ellen.

My son has been with Ellen 2+ years now. Our first meeting, Ellen asked him lots of questions, with pictures and without, since his language skills were so limited. All of them were created to discern how much he did and didn’t understand in several areas of language. I observed and allowed her to work with him by himself. When we saw Ellen again, she had a detailed report of his evaluation. It broke down language into 14 categories/sub-categories and showed exactly where and how far he was behind. She created a plan for his therapy and we’ve never looked back! Ellen is very professional and we’ve never had any problems with insurance or billing. She is firm and enforces boundaries and makes it clear who is in charge during sessions and what she expects from her students. She is very patient though and never talks down to my son or makes him feel inferior in any way. We’ve gone from a goal of three-word sentences to now building complex sentences and creating stories. Highly recommend!

Ellen is a wonderful speech language pathologist who is an absolute pleasure to work with. She is a very kind, warm, and caring individual who always has a smile on her face and a positive attitude. Ellen is one of the most engaged providers we have ever worked with. She provides a rich learning environment where my son is comfortable and encouraged to have fun while practicing his articulation. I happily recommend Cheerful Chatter to other families. My son is making great progress with Ellen!

My 2 children and I had the honor of participating in 2 programs this past summer with Ellen at Cheerful Chatter. My boys were not happy at first going to 'school' in the summer. After the 1st week, they were so excited that they were having fun, that they couldn't wait to go the next week and the week after that, etc. Ellen is very knowledgeable and has a wonderful way of teaching. She has made changes to our lives that will last forever. And for that, I am eternally grateful.