Dr. Judy Walker & MaryBeth Richards Discuss Preservice Training at the University of Maine

Judy P. Walker is a Professor and Coordinator of the University of Maine Speech Therapy Telepractice Program. Dr. Walker has extensive clinical experience working in medical centers, rehabilitation hospitals, and long-term health care facilities. Her academic and research interests include: speech therapy telepractice, neurolinguistics, and cognitive neuroscience. Dr. Walker established the University of Maine Speech Therapy Telepractice Program whose mission encompasses graduate student telepractice clinical training while providing speech therapy telepractice services to children and adults throughout Maine and at an international school in Fiji. She provides clinical supervision to graduate students in the speech therapy telepractice practicum and teaches graduate courses in traumatic brain injury, aphasia, right hemisphere damage and dementia. Her research focuses on improving the quality of life of people with aphasia and their caregivers through participation in synchronous telepractice groups. She consults with numerous academic programs and agencies who are interested in starting a telepractice program. Dr. Walker has also been invited to write book chapters and give presentations on topics related to the speech therapy telepractice service delivery model.

MaryBeth Richards assists in the telepractice program with supervision and training of the graduate student clinicians. MaryBeth has experience working in the infant, preschool, and school-age populations as well as in the acute care and home health settings. MaryBeth is currently the Maine representative to the American Speech Hearing Association’s Speech Language Pathology Advisory Council.