Dr. Amanda Blackwell Discusses Finding Her Passion In Guatemala

After serving for a year as a volunteer speech language pathologist at an orphanage in Guatemala in 2013, Amanda Blackwell has been living and working full-time in the country for over 7 years. Amanda completed a clinical doctorate in speech language pathology and started the official professional association for local Guatemalan speech therapists (SomosTLgt), which has grown to more than 300 members over the past year. In January 2020, she began working toward a Doctor of Education degree at Murray State University with the goal of opening a university for allied health professions in Guatemala to improve the quality of services across the country. She currently directs the speech therapy departments at FUNDAL (for individuals with deafblindness and multiple disabilities) and the Guatemalan Association of Down Syndrome in Guatemala City, teaches a course about teletherapy through UOC in Barcelona, Spain, provides teletherapy services for public school students in the United States, runs an autism education social project for Spanish speakers called LUNA (@lunautismo), and is part of the ASHA-PAHO ad hoc committee for Ecuador. She was a clinical supervisor of graduate students at the University of California San Marcos doing teletherapy in the Summer of 2020 and she is an adjunct research fellow working with five doctoral students in the SLPD program at Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions in Provo, Utah. She is a life-long learner herself and also loves providing dynamic training on various topics to school districts and SLPs around the world.