Joanne P. Smith-Darden, MSW, CCC-SLP, Ph.D.

Joanne Smith-Darden holds degrees in education, speech and language pathology, social work and developmental psychology. She obtained an interdisciplinary doctorate in Social Work and Psychology at the University of Michigan. Her area of graduate school research specialization was the intersection of early childhood trauma, attachment and cognitive processing (specifically auditory and language processing). She has trained, practiced, consulted and acted as director in a variety of settings including schools, educational cooperatives serving low-incidence handicaps, rehabilitation facilities, hospitals and the Bureau of Juvenile Justice. Dr. Smith-Darden is the co-principal investigator for the "Cognition and Disabilities Project," a project spearheaded as a collaborative effort between the University of Michigan and the State of Michigan to better understand how early childhood experiences impact learning and development.

Dr. Smith-Darden has performed assessments on toddlers, children,adolescents and adults, covering a wide variety of developmental and acquired neurologicaldisorders, particularly conducting evaluations of individuals with pervasive developmentaldisorders, traumatic brain injuries, speech and language disorders and oral motordisorders (including swallowing). Her assessments focus on providing diagnosticinformation and include individualized recommendations to optimize each client’slearning strengths and weaknesses. She has participated in, and directed, numerousschool meetings that help parents, students, teachers and administrators incorporateassessment results to strategize meaningful educational as well as therapeutic objectivesfor the client.

Dr. Smith-Darden has published articles and abstracts in the fieldof psychology and social work and has presented at national and international conferences.She has co-authored two book chapters and is collaborating on a textbook in educationalpsychology with colleagues at the University of Michigan. She has presented at localorganizations, including schools, universities and professional associations, on topicsrelated to learning disabilities, pervasive developmental disorders, executive functioningskills and the importance of creating a safe therapeutic environment to enhance interventionefficacy. She was and continues to be involved in the training and supervision of socialwork and speech and language pathology interns.

Dr. Smith-Darden currently holds adjunct faculty appointments in theDepartment of Psychology at the University of Michigan and in the School of Social Work atEastern Michigan University. In addition to teaching, Dr. Smith-Darden provides trainingsand consults to the Michigan Bureau of Justice, VIP Mentoring, Ohio school districts andDetroit charter schools. She has been licensed with the American-Speech-Language-HearingAssociation for the past 25 years.

Autism is a tough enough thing to live with every day, but add in emotional and social issues and things can get pretty overwhelming! Your ability to take all these complicated issues, bring them together, and provide clear and concise guidelines for how to make things better – how can we thank you? Of course, there are still struggles (and always will be), but we understand now how to lessen the frustration level when we see Sarah escalating. We’ll keep you posted on how she’s doing.

Thanks again.

Mark B.