Therapist Feature: Heather Karchefski, SLP

Our featured team member this month is Heather Karchefski, Speech-Language Pathologist.

Heather graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2017. She has been practicing in pediatrics since graduating four years ago and in outpatient pediatrics for three years. Heather was originally drawn to the profession after working as a nanny to a child who has Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Because of this opportunity for her to observe and witness his speech therapy appointments, she knew it was the right path for her. 

“I have been working for Tilton’s Therapy for one year in June — time flies when you love your job!”

During the course of her career thus far, Heather has not yet had the opportunity to take on any students, but looks forward to that in the future. Heather loves working with children on their social skills and feels that mobile therapy is an awesome way to target these skills as parents and siblings can participate. 

She has also grown to love using Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) both high and low-tech to assist minimally verbal significantly unintelligible children to communicate to those around them. Heather has begun taking classes to expand her knowledge in regards to feeding as this has shown to be a major need for many of the children on her caseload. 

Originally, Heather was born in Orange County but was raised in beautiful Northern Nevada. Living in this area, Heather feels lucky enough to be surrounded by hiking right outside her door. She spends a lot of time in Truckee and Lake Tahoe with her two dogs. At home, Heather loves being able to make fresh juice, bake treats, and try new recipes, which she says, “my boyfriend and dogs appreciate!"

Heather loves the ability to have access to a child’s home and make therapy as functional as possible for them and their family. The buy-in from parents is significantly higher with mobile therapy than what she has previously seen in outpatient therapy settings. She also finds that the ability to collaborate with her team remotely through a mobile app has been an awesome way to communicate!

Thank you Heather for your hard work and dedication to your discipline. We look forward to all that you will continue to accomplish!