Kristie graduated from the University of Houston with a Master of Arts in Communication Disorders. Over the last 20 years, Kristie has had the pleasure of working in multiple facilities in various capacities. She has performed diagnosis and treatment of disorders related to orofacial myology, pediatric (toddler/child) feeding aversion, apraxia, disorders related to cleft lip and palate, language disorders, aural rehabilitation, dysphasia, and pragmatic language disorders in infants, preschool children, school-aged children, and adults. For the past fifteen years, Kristie has focused her clinical skills on treating patients of all ages with issues in feeding, dysphagia, deglutition, oral sensory aversion, orofacial myology, swallowing, and sleep-related breathing disorders.
Kristie was the first Certified Orofacial Myologist (COM®) in the city of Houston. She is the author of three books Understanding the Orofacial Complex: The Evolution of Dysfunction (Outskirts Press, 2016), Understanding the Orofacial Complex – Muscle Manual (Outskirts Press, 2014), and Sam the Super Chewer, Eats (Mindstir Media, 2016). She is the owner and a treating clinician with The Speech and Language Connection in Houston, as well as an instructor for the International Association of Orofacial Myology and an international lecturer on Orofacial Myology and oral phase swallowing dysfunction. In 2018, she was the invited myofunctional representative at the first American Dental Association’s Children’s Airway Health Conference and Roundtable discussions.
She is a member of the International Association of Orofacial Myology (IAOM) and the immediate Past President of the association, is a member-at-large of the Board of Directors for the American Academy of Private Practitioners in Speech Pathology and Audiology, holds her Certificate of Clinical Competence with the American Speech, Language, and Hearing Association (ASHA), is a member of the Texas Speech, Language, and Hearing Association (TSHA). and previously served on the Community Advisory Board for the University of Houston, eligibility for school-aged students for Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, as Vice President of Membership in the Houston Association for Communication Disorders (HACD), and worked for the Alzheimer’s Association/Greater Houston Chapter, and The Parish School.