About Allison Stephens, Educational Therapist
Allison Stephens, M.S., graduated from The University of Arizona with a Bachelor’s degree in Communicative Disorders. She received her Master’s Degree from SFSU in Speech-Language Pathology. While in High School at Sacred Heart Prep on the Peninsula, Allison spent her summer obtaining community service hours at The Children’s Heath Council at Stanford. At the time, Allison worked under a Speech and Language Therapist which sparked her desire to pursue a career helping children with communication impairments. While going through her Masters program she returned to The Children’s Health Council and obtained clinical experience. She provided not only educational therapy to children with learning differences but also provided services to children with speech and language disorders.
During that time, Allison also worked as an SLP in the public school system at Encinal School in Palo Alto. While in this setting, Allison provided intervention services for children with various communicative disorders, and she gained valuable knowledge related to the IEP process and Special Education procedures in the public school system.
Eventually, Allison broadened her scope by going through a specialized yoga based training method with children, Integrated Movement Therapy, at the Samarya Center in Seattle. Core principles target structure and continuity, language stimulation, physical stimulation, social interaction, self calming and direct self esteem building through a holistic, brain based method. To continue her education in this realm, she also obtained a yoga certification with children at, Its Yoga Kids, in San Francisco. She provided yoga as a fun activity for children of all ages and abilities. Children are exposed to integrated yoga with reading, writing, storytelling, music, games and poetry. While having fun, children consciously discipline themselves in areas of balance and concentration. Over time, these techniques are consciously applied to everyday life.
Allison specializes in working with children and adults with learning differences. Traditional tutors focus on current academic content being presented in class, while Allison uses a research-based approach. She is able to remediate foundational skills in reading and written language as well as teach specific study skills to address working memory and organizational deficits.
Allison uses multi-sensory structured language intervention programs that address phonemic awareness, orthographic competence, reading fluency, reading comprehension, and spelling.
In her spare time, Allison enjoys tennis, running and biking with her children. She spends time with her children exploring new places and staying active in the community. Allison is a member of Support for Families with Children with Special Needs, Academy of Sciences, Discovery Museum, St. Vincent De Paul Society and is a member of National Charity League with her daughter providing philanthropy throughout the Bay Area. She also served on the board at Star Academy in Marin.
Allison’s
Educational Therapy
Methods
Visualizing and Verbalizing (V and V)
The Visualizing and Verbalizing program targets helps those who struggle to understand written and spoken language. The child is asked to visualize pictures in their mind as they listen to or read text. This methodology helps the child visualize the main idea and comprehend written details in the text. Children who struggle with reading comprehension will benefit from this!
V and V:
Concept imagery
Visualization
Details in a story
Reading comprehension
Long term memory recall
Following directions
Skill Development
Executive Functioning
Note taking skills
Studying and test taking skills
Critical thinking
Problem solving
Reasoning
Self Advocacy
Confidence building
Time Management
Task Initiation
Planning and Prioritizing
Metacognition
Organization
Working Memory
Lindamood-Bell Therapy
Lindamood-Bell therapy is an educational approach that provides intensive, individualized instruction to help individuals with reading, comprehension, and language processing difficulties. It focuses on developing underlying cognitive processes through a multi-sensory, structured, and systematic method, and is often used as an intervention for individuals who have struggled with traditional instruction methods.
Seeing Stars
The Seeing Stars program helps to strengthen phonemic awareness, word attack, word recognition, spelling, and contextual reading fluency.
Gained skills being taught:
Seeing Stars:
Phonemic awareness
Word recognition
Spelling
Contextual reading fluency
Reading fluency
Reading
Decoding
Phonological Processing
Phonemic Awareness
Reading Comprehension
Vocabulary Development
Writing
Encoding
Written Expression
Sentence Structure
Essay Writing and
PlanningWriting Mechanics
Editing
Integrated Movement Therapy™
Integrated Movement Therapy™ is a holistic therapy approach used with children in therapy. IMT uses yoga’s philosophical, physical and spiritual framework in conjunction with conventional neurophysiological perspectives to address the challenges of being human.
The IMT approach is based on three overarching philosophies: that the student is already perfect and whole, that the student and teacher are both unlimited in their abilities to heal, and that no part of the body/mind/spirit complex, and no part of the brain, works alone.
Integrated Movement Therapy™ is an approach that combines speech-language pathology, behavioral and mental health counseling, and Yoga. It is taught by master-degreed therapists who are also certified Yoga instructors. This approach has been successfully implemented with children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Learning Disabilities, Pervasive Developmental Delay, Sensory Integration Dysfunction, Dyspraxia, and other specific motor-based disorders. Integrated Movement Therapy has six core principles: structure and continuity, social interaction, language stimulation, self-calming, physical stimulation, and direct self-esteem building.
Client Testimonials
Patient and Flexible
“Allison has been working with my 8 year old daughter for a couple of years on her reading and spelling skills. Allison adjusted her methods to best accommodate her needs using repetition and approaches from the Lindamon Bell Program. This combined with Allison’s patience and flexibility have led to great progress!”
- Anonymous (Parent)
- Anonymous (Par
Student Testimonial
Enjoyable Learning Experience and Helpful
“I loved seeing [Allison] for many months where [she] helped me so much to improve my grammar, editing, writing complete and interesting sentences, reading, reading comprehension, and increasing my vocabulary. I have enjoyed every second we got to spend whether playing bogle or reading words on a chart. I would like to say thank you for bringing my reading, writing, and vocabulary from being behind in my class to being able to do incredibly well in the classroom.”
- Former Student, 10 years old
Kind and Gentle Approach
“Allison Stephens started working with my eight-year-old son just before COVID lockdown. We had to transition quickly to virtual learning, and Allison did an incredible job shifting his sessions from in-person to online. Over two years, Allison was able to develop my son's foundational phonetic ear, so that he was able to differentiate sounds. When he started working with Allison, he was struggling to read and write at grade level, and Allison was able to bring him up to speed and support his ongoing growth and development. More than that, Allison brings a kind and gentle approach that fosters an environment where kids feel safe and nurtured. She regularly encourages them and makes the work fun and engaging. Allison meets each child where they are, and designs an approach that meets their needs.”
- K.J. (Parent)
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