Alida Engel | Nancy Slugasky | Allyson Winzer | Kelly Annino

Alida Engel, CCC-SLP, BRS-FD

Speech and Language Pathologist Alida Engel has over 40 years of experience in Connecticut private and public schools, and in her private practice in New Haven, Connecticut. She works with children and adults and is a generalist, with broad experience in stuttering, autism, voice, language, articulation, auditory processing, reading, accent reduction, and other speech concerns. Articles about and by her have appeared in the New York Times, the New Haven Register, the Bridgeport Post and the New Haven Advocate.

Parents are an integral part of our program. Alida feels strongly that parents must be taught the support skills to play an active role in changing children's lives through improving their communication. One of the advantages of private, non-school speech therapy is having the opportunity to work directly with parents, and the freedom to show them any and all options for helping their children, unlimited by the budget and information constraints that are, by necessity, imposed within a school system. Alida is innovative and willing to take risks to achieve communication breakthroughs.

Alida is a Board Recognized Specialist in Fluency (stuttering) Disorders (BRS-FD), making her one of only 179 such practitioners in the US and Canada. BRS-FDs have acquired a high level of clinical expertise in treating fluency disorders, possess advanced knowledge, and have demonstrated a commitment to serving people with fluency disorders. The BRS-FD designation is a program of the American Speech, Language, and Hearing Association (ASHA).

Alida has made many presentations on speech and language issues. She spoke to the Connecticut Speech-Language-Hearing Association on "Pre-School Stuttering Therapy: Lidcombe and Other Approaches" in March 2009. She trained pre-school teachers across Connecticut in "Teaching Language in the Natural Environment." She has lectured at the Yale School of Nursing about "Early Identification of Speech and Language Development," and also to nurses and doctors at St. Raphael's Hospital (now part of Yale-New Haven Hospital).

Alida has earned 18 Awards for Continuing Education (ACEs), testifying to her personal commitment to ongoing professional learning subsequent to the achievement of her degree in speech pathology. Her 18 place her among those who have accumulated the most ACEs in the country.

Alida strives, through her continuing professional education choices, to maintain currency in major areas of speech therapy, so that she can offer her patients state of the art approaches to diagnoses and therapy. Over the years, she has worked to continuously update her knowledge and refine her professional skills in many areas, including:

• Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD)
  • DIR/Floortime Approach (Dr. Greenspan)
  • The SCERTS Model (Social Communication, Emotional Regulation, Transactional Support - Dr. Barry Prizant)
  • Autism On-line Conference (Yale)
  • Executive Functioning (Sarah Ward, MS CCC-SLP)
  • Child Behavior Management for effective learning and better life functioning


• Articulation/Apraxia
  • Update on Childhood Apraxia of Speech (Dr. Shelly Velleman)
  • R-in-the-Car CD: 10 Fun Songs to Learn to Pronounce the "R" (Produced by Alida Engel, CCC-SLP, BRS-FD)
  • Kaufman Method for Childhood Apraxia


• Social Language Skills
  • Social Thinking (Michelle Garcia Winner, MS CCC-SLP)
  • Executive Functioning (Sarah Ward, MS CCC-SLP)


• Reading, Reading Comprehension, and Writing
  • The Language Basis of Reading Disabilities
  • The Struggling Reader: From Assessment to Intervention
  • Fast ForWord on-line learning program to increase vocabulary and learning capacity, by capitalizing on brain elasticity.
  • Reading Kingdom, Dr. Marian Blank


• Stuttering (fluency). Alida is a Board Recognized Specialist in Fluency Disorders (BRS-FD)
  • The Lidcombe Method for Children who Stutter (Dr. Mark Onslow)
  • The 4th , 5th, 6th, and 7th World Congresses for People Who Stutter (2003, 2006, 2009, 2012)
  • Advancing Practice in Fluency Disorders
  • Cognitive Therapy and Stuttering
  • Stuttering Therapy: Workshop for Specialists


• Voice
  • Lessac-Based Resonant Voice Therapy (Kittie Verdolini Abbott, Ph.D., CCC-SLP)
  • Care of the Professional Voice
  • Differential Diagnosis and Treatment of Voice Disorders
  • Update in Pediatric Airway, Voice and Swallowing Disorders (Harvard)
  • Voice Foundation 25th Annual Symposium: Care of Voice
  • Voice Foundation 33rd Annual Symposium: Care of the Professional Voice
  • Voice Therapy: A Comprehensive Approach


• Oral Motor Functioning
  • Therapy for Severe Articulation Impediments
  • Motor Control Disorders (Sara Rosenfeld-Johnson, Talk Tools)


• Language
  • Communication for Children with Learning and Language Disability
  • Children's Language Disorders: Intervention in the School Setting
  • Links to Language (Pam Pyane, MS CCC-SLP
  • Reading and Language Comprehension (Dr. Marion Blank, PhD)


• Accent Reduction
  • Psycholinguistic aspects of foreign accents
  • Accent Reduction: Lorna Sikorski, LDS


• Use of Computer Programs and iPad APPs
  • APPs for Autism
  • Apps for Articulation
  • Language and literacy and the Computer
  • Fast ForWord (on-line system for exploiting brain elasticity to achieve better learning and communication)


• Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD)
  • Interdisciplinary "Boot Camp" on Central Auditory Processing Disorder, at the University of Connecticut.
  • Understanding Auditory Processing Disorders (CAPD)

Alida Engel | Nancy Slugasky | Allyson Winzer | Kelly Annino

Nancy Slugasky, CCC-SLP

Nancy Slugasky has worked for over 25 years both in public and private schools. She has provided services for children ranging from pre-school to high school, including those with oral-motor difficulties, speech/phonological delays, language disorders, autism, and auditory processing disorders.

Allyson Winzer, CCC-SLP

Allyson Winzer, M.S. CCC-SLP, joined the Center for Speech and Learning in the Spring of 2010. She has broad experience in Speech Pathology. Allyson began her career facilitating communication in the Birth-to-Three population - an experience she found very rewarding. She has also worked in hospital and rehabilitation clinic settings with adults working to overcome acquired communication disabilities. Due to her years spent working in public schools, Allyson is well versed in young child and adolescent language development, especially social language and social thinking.

Allyson has pursued continuing education through workshops in, and has had substantial experience working with the following techniques:

PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System). An augmentative/alternative communication package for individuals with autism spectrum disorder and related developmental communication disabilities. Used with all ages, PECS trains the verbally challenged to use pictures to communicate, and teaches how to use the pictures in sentences, to answer questions, and to make comments.

PROMPT (Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets) is a method for using gestures and touch to help habituate children to better control mouth, tongue, and jaw movement for improved articulation.

Social Thinking. An approach to teaching effective social communication skills to high-functioning individuals with autism and similar challenges, which was pioneered by Michelle Garcia Winner

Story Grammer Marker. Uses visual and tactile tools to help young patients learn the elements of effective story-telling. In this way, they develop the skills to organize their stories for writing and retelling. The resulting improvement in narration, conversation, and exposition strengthens their ability to think and communicate, which can bring academic, personal, and social benefits.

Kelly Annino, CCC-SLP

Bio coming soon.

Alida Engel | Nancy Slugasky | Allyson Winzer | Kelly Annino