Hope Therapy Center

Kelly Abate,MA,CCC-SLP

Speech-language Pathologist

Kelly,a native of Lake Charles, LA,earned her bachelor's degree in Communication Disorders from Louisiana State University (LSU) in 2008. She continued her studies at LSU, earning her master's degree in Communication Disorders in 2010. During graduate school she had the opportunity to intern in a variety of settings including outpatient clinics, inpatient rehabilitation, newborn nursery, and multi-disciplinary early-childhood clinic. Kelly has completed advanced training, becoming Hanen certified,through attending It Takes Two to Talk, a family-focused program of parents with young children who have communication difficulties. Kelly is excited to share the practical and powerful strategies she learned during this training to help more children communicate and interact more successfully during every-day routines and activities. Most recently, Kelly completed training in The Kaufman Speech to Language Protocol, a systematic approach that encourages best approximations of words until the child develops increased motor-speech coordination. This protocol has been effective for a variety of medical and communication diagnoses, including but not limited to: childhood apraxia of speech, phonological disorder, autism, and Down's syndrome. Kelly's areas of interest include; pediatric feeding, autism spectrum disorders, and apraxia of speech. Kelly truly enjoys helping others and making a difference in her patient's lives. during her time away from clinic, Kelly enjoys cooking, gardening, traveling, playing tennis, and spending time with her friends and family!