Kristen Fahey Burns, M.A., CCC-SLP

About Me


​I am a Speech Language Pathologist with more than 10 years of experience working with both children and adults in the areas of articulation, fluency, language, augmentative and alternative communication, cognition and literacy.  I have worked in a variety of settings including Maine public schools, hospitals, nursing homes and private clinics.

I earned a Bachelor's degree in Psychology at Wheaton College in Massachusetts and a Master's degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Maine.  I hold licensure to practice as a Speech Language Pathologist in the state of Maine.  Additionally, I have attained a Certificate of Clinical Competence (CCC) from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA).  In order to uphold these licenses and certification, I stay up to date regarding evidence based practice in the field of Speech Language Pathology through at least 10 hours of continuing education opportunities each year.

When I am not working with clients, I am usually outside enjoying the beautiful state of Maine with my family.  In the summer, this means hiking or spending time at the beach.  In the winter, I enjoy snow shoeing and cross country skiing.  I also enjoy reading, knitting, and traveling.

Specialized Trainings

  • Level One PROMPT Trained Clinician
    • ​PROMPT stands for PROMPTs for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets.  The technique is a tactile-kinesthetic approach that uses touch cues to a patient’s articulators (jaw, tongue, lips) to manually guide them through a targeted word, phrase or sentence. The technique develops motor control and the development of proper oral muscular movements, while eliminating unnecessary muscle movements, such as jaw sliding and inadequate lip rounding.  This program is designed for children and adults with motor speech disorders such as childhood apraxia of speech, dysarthria, and/or speech that is difficult to understand.
  • Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing Program for Reading, Spelling, and Speech (LiPS)​​​ 
    • ​A multi-sensory program that teaches the child to discover and label oral motor movements of phonemes.   Through this program, a child can improve their ability to identify sounds in words, blend, and segment sounds and syllables to improve their decoding skills.  This program simultaneously enhances phonological awareness, reading, writing, and articulation skills.
  • ​Visualizing and Verbalizing (V+V)​
    • ​Visualizing and Verbalizing is another Lindamood-Bell program that helps teach children to develop concept imagery (the ability to create an image in their head from language).  This program helps children with both reading and listening comprehension, memory, vocabulary, critical thinking, and writing skills.  
  • Childhood Apraxia of Speech: Practical Treatment Strategies
    • ​Childhood Apraxia of Speech is a motor speech disorder that makes it difficult for children to plan the movement of body parts (i.e. lips, tongue, and jaw) in order to produce sounds, syllables, and words.  Children with this disorder often have difficulty making progress with typical articulation therapy methods.  This method utilizes a multi-sensory approach using visual and tactile cuing to  improve the success of treatment for children with motor planning difficulties.
  • Dyslexia: Improving Performance in Cognition, Language and Social Interaction
    • ​​Using movement, games, activities and storytelling can improve learning and performance while overcoming challenges in social interaction, executive function, and anxiety for children with Dyslexia.  The diagnostic characteristics of Dyslexia can often affect a child's sound/symbol awareness, reading comprehension, social interaction, and executive functioning.  Incorporating all of these factors is important to improve children's success at home and school.​
  • Pyramid Educational Consults Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS)- Basic Training and Transitioning from PECs to Speech Generating Devices
    • ​PECS is a straightforward and low tech augmentative and assistive communication system developed for children with Autism or developmental disabilities.  However, it can also be very effective for children with highly unintelligible speech or young children who are late talkers.  Additionally, t can help children expand 1-2 word utterances into more complex and functional communicative phrases.

Therapy Approach

Through my practice in other settings, I have worked with many different professionals including teachers, occupational therapists, physical therapists, social workers and psychologists.  Working alongside these individuals, I have learned how important it is to incorporate the diverse needs of not only the individual receiving therapy but also their families and caregivers.  Through all therapy plans, I work to incorporate reading, writing, sensory, movement and social skills activities into weekly sessions.  This allows for more functional therapy activities that will assist my clients in their everyday life.  Additionally, this practice operates under a family centered approach where the client, their family members and caregivers are directly involved in coming up with therapy goals, tracking progress and completing carryover activities.  This approach allows for more successful outcomes and shortens the overall duration of therapy in many cases.