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Alessandra Priorelli, Psy.D.
Dr. Alessandra Priorelli is a
U.S. Licensed Clinical Psychologist who heads the clinical branch of the
Children’s Evaluation Network.
Following
her First Class Honours Bachelor's degree in Psychology from Bristol University in the U.K., Dr. Priorelli worked in research
before moving to the United States in 1996. There she has spent the past 10 years studying and working in the Boston area. Having attained
a Masters in Child Development from Tufts University
and a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, she completed a two-year
Post-doctoral Fellowship in Pediatric Neuropsychology at the Children’s Evaluation Center (CEC), a multi-disciplinary
group practice that provides assessment, treatment and consultation services to children with special needs and their families.
Dr.
Priorelli became a full-time clinical staff member of the CEC in 2004, where she specialised in conducting developmental assessments,
neuropsychological evaluations, and educational testing for children with a wide range of mild to severe challenges and diagnoses.
These included learning disabilities, attentional difficulties, language-based disorders, executive functioning issues, neurological
disorders, Autism Spectrum disorders, genetic syndromes, mental retardation, anxiety disorders, and behavioural/regulatory
challenges. As part of her professional role, she was actively involved in providing consultation to schools and to other
service providers (e.g., pediatricians, therapists, advocates), in addition to conducting classroom/programme observations
and remaining available for educational documentation review. Follow-up care over time became a central part of Dr. Priorelli’s
clinical practice.
In
her current position of Clinical Psychologist at the Children’s Evaluation Network (CEN), Dr. Priorelli has maintained
her commitment to providing individualised, thorough and comprehensive evaluation and consultation services to children and
their families. She conducts assessments of toddlers, preschoolers and school-aged children following an extensive variety
of referral questions, performs school, programme and classroom observations, attends educational team meetings, and consults
to parents, teachers, and other professionals.
Dr.
Priorelli is a member of the American Psychological Association (APA) and of the British Psychological Society (BPS). She
also maintains a strong professional relationship with the Integrated Center for Child Development (ICCD) in Boston,
a multi-disciplinary group practice that has evolved from the CEC, and whose departments include Clinical, Educational, Behavioural,
Speech and Language, and Medical Services.
Dr.
Priorelli spent her formative years living around the world (e.g., United Kingdom,
Italy, Brazil, Denmark, Spain, United States), and for many of these she attended international schools. Given
the combination of her personal background and professional training, she therefore has a particular interest in working with
children who, like herself, are having an international upbringing and experiencing the many benefits and challenges that
come from this. Dr. Priorelli is multi-lingual.
Oribell Z. Botero,
MS CCC-SLP MRC SLT
Ms.
Oribell Zoraya Botero is a speech-language pathologist with a specialty in the birth to five population. She has expertise
in providing speech, language, and/or feeding therapy and assessments to infants, toddlers and children through the elementary
school years. She also has extensive experience in educating and training parents, teachers and other professionals on issues
pertaining to speech and language development and intervention, and feeding skills.
She is currently a member of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA) and the Royal
College of Speech Language Therapists (RCSLT).
Ms. Botero obtained
her Bachelor of Arts in Hispanic Language & Literature in 1999 from Boston University, and then went on to receive her Masters of Science in Communication Disorders in 2001
from Arizona State
University. In 2007, Ms. Botero became a recipient of the Award
for Continuing Education, a formal recognition of professionals who have demonstrated their commitment to lifelong learning
by participating in a variety of workshops and seminars aimed to further develop clinical skills.
Ms. Botero
is a firm believer in a collaborative approach among families, caregivers, educators, and therapists to maximise therapeutic
outcomes. While working with preschoolers in New York, she
worked closely with classroom personnel as well as occupational and physical therapists to develop a multidisciplinary approach
to speech and language development. Ms. Botero also has extensive experience providing therapy within the classroom by leading
group activities such as circle time, story time, gross motor, and art, and in planning activities to promote speech and language
development within the classroom. She has conducted parent-child groups and led in-services to train classroom personnel.
In addition, Ms. Botero is experienced in providing family training and educating families so that they are knowledgeable
about typical and atypical language skills and behaviours, how to address behaviour modification,
and how to promote speech, language, and feeding skills.
Ms. Botero has many
years of experience as a bilingual clinician, working with children from diverse bilingual/bicultural backgrounds. During
her studies at Arizona State
University, she worked as a research assistant on a grant that examined
the language skills of bilingual/bicultural Spanish/English speaking children ages three to five pre and post participation
in an early literacy program aimed to facilitate language development, and she focused her studies on bilingualism, multiculturalism,
and second language acquisition. In 2003, Ms. Botero undertook further coursework to continue to develop her skills in
bilingualism and the cultural and linguistic aspects of language assessment and intervention at The
Bilingual Institute at Columbia University Teacher’s College.
In addition to working
with children from diverse bilingual/bicultural backgrounds,
Ms. Botero also has
extensive expertise in working with children that have a range of medical diagnosis including medically fragile, Down Syndrome,
cerebral palsy, and feeding/oral motor dysfunction. In 2001, Ms. Botero worked with blind and visually impaired children with
mild to severe developmental delays. It was during her work with such children, that she developed an interest in providing
feeding therapy. Since then, Ms. Botero has attended several workshops to further develop her skills as a feeding specialist.
Ms. Botero currently
works for the Children’s Evaluation Network as an evaluator and interventionist. She is available for home-based therapy,
assessments, school visits, and appointments at the centre.
Elena P. Soucacou, D. Phil.
Dr.
Elena P. Soucacou is a trained early childhood special education teacher, with recent research and clinical experience in
working with young children and their families in educational and clinical settings. She
serves as a consultant for the Children's Evaluation Network.
Over
the past 12 years, Dr. Soucacou has been studying the development of children with diverse educational and behavioural profiles
and researching the quality of early education programmes and interventions. Her first cycle of studies took place in her
home country of Greece,
where she completed a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology at the school
of Philosophy, Pedagogy and Psychology of the National University of
Athens.
In
2000, Dr. Soucacou moved to the United States
to pursue her second cycle of training. During these years, she completed a Master’s programme in Early Childhood Special
Education at Columbia University, and worked
in the field of early intervention and preschool special education in New York.
Her work involved conducting educational assessments of children with identified disabilities, providing interventions to
children in their school, home and clinical settings, as well as collaborating with early childhood teachers to support children
with identified special education needs in their schools.
Following
her graduate training and work experience in the U.S., Dr. Soucacou moved
to Oxford University, U.K.,
to undertake her doctoral studies and completed a doctoral degree (D.Phil) in 2007. Her research focused on the assessment
of the quality of inclusive programmes. Her interests include the quality of classroom practices in inclusive and special
education settings, the effectiveness of early educational assessment and interventions, and the social and emotional development
of young children.
Dr.
Soucacou is a member of the American Educational Research Association, the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scales (ECERS)
International Network, and the Families, Early Learning and Literacy research group (FELL) based at Oxford University. Her research and work have
been published in peer reviewed journals and presented at international conferences.
In
her current position of special education teacher and educational programme consultant
at the Children’s Evaluation Network (CEN), Dr. Soucacou, provides direct education services to children, develops educational
and behavioural interventions for individual children (school and home based) and provides consultation to mainstream and
specialised schools with regards to the implementation and coordination of educational and therapeutic services.
Dr. Soucacou works closely with
the families, caregivers and professionals involved in children’s development and attempts to integrate current research
with her teaching skills and the realities of everyday home and classroom life of young children.
Kathleen G. Burek, M.Ed.
Mrs. Kathleen G. Burek is a certified
special education teacher and learning disabilities specialist who serves as a consultant and educational strategist for the Children’s Evaluation Network.
Following
her Masters of Education in Learning Disabilities from Boston College in the United States, Mrs. Burek has over thirty years of experience as a teacher, tutor and consultant
in public and private schools in the U.S.
She has trained extensively with Mel Levine in both Boston and North Carolina, and is currently collaborating with
the Center for School Success in W. Lebanon, New Hampshire. Mrs. Burek is presently the Director of Educational
Services at the Integrated Center for Child Development (ICCD) , a multi-disciplinary group practice in the Boston area, where
she provides direct tutoring services to children with learning needs, trains and supervises educators, offers parent and
parent/student consultation regarding individualised academic plans, specialised curricula, and study strategies, performs
programme evaluations, and works closely with educational teams, clinicians and other providers.
In
her career, and as part of her current position at the ICCD, Mrs. Burek has extensive experience in designing and conducting
workshops for students, parents and teachers. Topics include:
Student Workshops:
Preparing for Middle School
· Note-taking strategies, how to take salient information from text, essay outlining, proof reading, how to organise materials for multiple classes.
Exam Preparation
· How to prepare for a multiple-choice, short-answer and essay question exam, how to organize
a term’s worth of material, how to prepare a study guide, how to plan your time to study.
Parent Workshops:
Introducing Parents to School Entrance Exams
· Independent School Entrance Exam (ISEE), Secondary School Admission Test (SSAT), SAT I &
II, ACT and other college entrance exams.
Teacher Workshops:
How to Make the Most of an Evaluation
· How to review a test report and apply its findings to a classroom and to learning, how to
create curricular adaptation and accommodations based on test recommendations, how to modify the classroom physical space
to minimize visual and auditory distractors.
Learning Styles
· Reviewing different learning styles and teaching techniques for these, how to meet multiple
needs in a classroom.
As a consultant for the Children’s Evaluation Network, Mrs. Burek provides an invaluable
resource for students, parents and teachers via telephone conferencing and email correspondence. She is also available to
conduct in-person consultations, evaluations, tutorials, trainings and workshops during scheduled visits to London and other European cities.
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