Isabel Salcedo is a Speech and Language Pathologist who worked in early intervention in New York for 3 years and has been working in Illinois since 2008.
Her first experience in New York was due to recruitment in her home Country (Colombia) of Speech therapists who speak Spanish due to the high demand in that state, in addition to her passion for working with special needs children. She came to Illinois to work for a School district 14 years ago and went back to Early Intervention part-time because she was frequently seeing cases in schools coming to Kindergarten with language and speech delays who never received any type of intervention or attended Early Intervention and did not attend Preschool, therefore the struggles of these students broke her heart and made her think about the need to go back to Early Intervention and try to work with families to promote the importance of attending Preschool at the age of 3, especially if they have been identified with a disability. The RTW is an important project because she has witnessed families in Early Intervention waiting so long for a diagnosis of autism to get the right support for their children.
In her spare time, she loves to read books, exercise, have family movie nights, watch true events series or movies, and dance. She is a firm advocator for special needs students as well as for keeping her culture and typical dances alive and passing the customs to her compatriots. She has two sons, a twenty-four-year-old studying Computer Science, a seventeen-year-old High School Senior excited to join the Army next year, and happily married to the funniest, sweet, and devoted husband. She appreciates this opportunity and hopes she can make a great contribution to this project.
Pronouns: she/her