HJELTE-PHILLIPS SPEECH & LANGUAGE CENTER

Kimberly Tan
M.A., CCC-SLP

Lead Speech-Language Pathologist

Kimberly earned her B.A. in Linguistics and English from UCLA and her M.A. in Communicative Disorders from California State University, Long Beach. In 2000, she began her career in special education in public schools, first as a Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) aide and later as a speech-language pathologist. After working in the Fountain Valley, Long Beach Unified, El Rancho Unified, and San Mateo-Foster City School Districts, Kimberly joined the team at Villa Esperanza Services in 2011. Here at Villa, she has worked with a diverse group of students, developing expertise in the areas of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), group intervention, supervision, and neurodiversity-affirming practices.

A TouchChat certified trainer, Kimberly stays current on evidence-based practices by attending and presenting at conferences such as the annual California Speech-Language-Hearing Association Conference. Following are the titles of her recent presentations:
• “Neurodiversity Affirming Practices for Autistic AAC Users” (co-presented with Tricia Lewis, 2023)
• “Creating Interactive Social Group Activities for Students with Complex Communication Needs” (co-presented with Cynthia Young, 2023)
• “Treating Autism: Recommendations From an Autistic College Student and His SLP Mom” (co-presented with Adam Tan, 2023)
• “Resources and Techniques for Bilingual Assessment in Young Children” (co-presented with Laura Garcia-Maxey and Judith Montgomery, 2019)
• “Speech and Language Assessments for Children from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Backgrounds: Resources and Techniques (co-presented with Laura Garcia-Maxey and Judith Montgomery, 2018)
• “Incorporating Repetition and Generalizing Social Skills in the Moderate to Severe Classroom” (2017).
Kimberly is a clinical instructor at Chapman University.

Contact Kimberly

Cynthia D. Young
M.S., CCC-SLP

Speech-Language Pathologist

Cynthia D. Young graduated cum laude from Cal State Northridge with a Masters in Communication Disorders and completed her clinical fellowship at a private clinic. Later at Easterseals of Southern California, she worked primarily with clients diagnosed with Autism, collaborating with families, as well as applied behavioral analysis (ABA) and occupational therapy (OT) specialists. Cynthia joined the professionals at Villa in 2022, where she has worked with moderate to severe and non-speaking students, guiding them in advancing their augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) and functional communication skills. Cynthia has achieved positive results when implementing AAC into her early intervention treatment. With school-aged clients, she has used complexity theory to resolve phonological issues and improve intelligibility in children who were previously severely unintelligible.

Collaborating with colleagues to help improve AAC education, implementation, and the evaluation process at Villa, Cynthia incorporates original weekly treatment activities with visuals and vocabulary targets. This ensures that lessons provide students with multiple opportunities to communicate and interact socially.

Cynthia presented Creating Interactive Social Group Activities for Students with Complex Communication Needs” with fellow Speech-Language Pathologist Kimberly Tan at California Speech Language Hearing Association’s 2023 conference. Cynthia serves not only Villa School’s population, but also clients from the Regional Center and Kaiser.

Contact Cynthia