Dr. Karen Dudek-Brannan

Home
United States
Bloomington, IL
Dr. Karen Dudek-Brannan

I help pediatric therapists become better leaders and make a bigger impact with their services. It is not medical advice.

Health and Medical Disclaimer: The information presented on this page is intended for educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose or treat any specific medical condition or disability. Please read our Terms of Use and Disclaimers here: https://drkarenspeech.com/terms-of-use/

09/09/2026

Many people think they’re working on executive functioning, but aren’t ACTUALLY working on executive functioning.

If you have students who have access to planners, visuals, lists, and other organizing tools, but still seem unorganized, this may be the case for your students.

Especially if you have students who flat out refuse to use organizers, or just forget to use them.

Even though people with strong executive functioning skills present on the outside as people who are “organized”, this is just the external presentation that happens as a result of the internal cognitive skills that enable them to appear like they have their act together.

That’s why when we jump right to the obvious tools for students, we’re often leaving a huge gap, which is why students often don’t know how to utilize tools they have at their disposal.

In episode 267 of De Facto Leaders, I elaborate on the definition of executive functioning, because this is the first step in determining how to help our students get to the point of “being organized” (plus many other things, which you’ll realize when you listen).

Comment below and say Episode 267 for the link

07/01/2026

“Accommodation” is a loaded word. On one hand, we want to provide reasonable accommodations in K-12 so kids can access their education.

But determining what is “reasonable” accommodation or modification can be messy.

Both parents and educators can unintentionally “overaccommodate” in the moment without realizing it, which over time can impede a child’s ability to work through daily challenges and solve problems on their own.

This can be in the context of adding too many “cookie-cutter” accommodations on a 504 Plan or IEP, or it can be unofficial accommodations in the way we interact with kids.

My colleagues who work on college campuses are seeing the impact of this “overhelping” in K-12.
And it’s not just kids with neurodevelopmental disorders. It’s the neurotypical kids too.

That’s why I invited my colleague, Jill Fahy, back to De Facto Leaders to talk about the state of college readiness, the upstream impacts of what’s happening in K-12 on success both during and after college.

Jill Fahy, Professor in the Department of Communication Disorders & Sciences, serves as the Director of STEP, a transitional education program for EIU students with autism. STEP programming supports the development of executive functions, social communication, self-appraisal, and self-regulatory skills to facilitate students' management of their academic and university living demands. She specializes in the assessment of executive dysfunction.

In this conversation, we discuss:

✅ The difference between accommodations and modifications, what “overhelping” looks like, and why it impedes development of important metacognitive skills.

✅ The state of college student mental health, and how it relates to the opportunities students have to practice self-regulation and experiencing failure.

✅ Skills many college students are lacking, including managing due dates, extended writing assignments, study skills, working through conflict, and managing their daily life.

✅ How and when to start fading supports, and how to recognize if you’ve been “overaccommodating” for a student

Listen in here: https://drkarendudekbrannan.com/ep-262-the-impact-of-overaccommodation-in-k-12-on-independence-in-college-and-beyond-with-jill-fahy/

06/24/2026

Are we really “overteaching” phonics, or should there be a hard stopping point where it’s not taught past a certain grade?

Are current stories trending on popular news outlets aligned with best practices for supporting dyslexic learners?

Is the public becoming more educated on how we learn to read, write, and spell?

I invited my colleague, Lori Josephson, an author, consultant, and former teacher to discuss these questions.

In this episode, we discuss:

✅ Common literacy “urban legends”, including “Dyslexia is seeing words backwards” and “look at the picture and guess the word”

✅ Why phonics gets a bad wrap and where the Science of Reading is often misunderstood

✅ Handwriting, keyboarding, and how they relate to neural connections

✅Making instruction more effective by integrating language, print, spelling, and executive functioning instead of siloing.

You can listen to the episode here: https://drkarendudekbrannan.com/ep-261-helping-kids-and-the-adults-supporting-them-understand-how-the-brain-learns-to-read-with-lori-josephson/

05/27/2026

In this conversation, I sat down with Kim Jenkins from Empowering Speech Services (link here: https://www.empoweringspeechservices.com/meet-kim ) to talk about how she’s used the frameworks from Language Therapy Advance Foundations ( https://drkarenspeech.com/languagetherapy/) along with the gestalt language processing stages, for reluctant readers, and AAC users.

We also talk about how important it is for clinicians to think flexibly with how they apply frameworks in therapy so they can pull from multiple sources to come up with their own personal protocols that work for their caseload.

We also chat about other topics such as what “alter ego” we want to emulate when we’re going through a challenge, social media strategies and mindset, our dogs, and how to draw parallels between language therapy, clinical practice, fitness, tips for learning how to do pull-ups, and other areas of life.

Kim Jenkins is a neurodiversity-affirming speech therapist who is passionate about helping neurodivergent children and their families flourish. Empowering Speech Services was built on the idea that authentic and meaningful communication can be achieved by focusing on a child's strengths, meeting their sensory needs, following their lead, and empowering family members in the process. Serving the Milton and Alpharetta areas of Georgia, she takes the time to truly get to know her clients, their joys, interests, unique strengths, and individual challenges.

In this conversation, we discuss:

✅ How Kim uses semantic features and syntactic study with AAC users

✅ Using the “Essential 5” framework from Language Therapy Advance Foundations with students who use a lot of scripting and gestalts

✅ Engaging a reluctant reader literacy and vocabulary work

✅ Parallels between life, language therapy, fitness, and social media marketing

You can listen to the conversation here: https://drkarendudekbrannan.com/ep-259-aac-gestalts-and-literacy-case-studies-for-using-the-essential-5-with-kimberly-jenkins/

05/07/2026

Recess is often thought of as an “extra” activity in the school day. Sometimes it’s even taken away from students as a punishment.

But some schools think about recess as an integral part of the school day, where students get the opportunity to connect, practice important social and problem-solving skills they’ll need for life.

Others are taking it a step further and using it as a tool to help students feel more connected to their school experience, and to decrease chronic absenteeism and establish a school culture where kids feel like they belong at school.

That’s why I was so excited to connect with Elizabeth Cushing from Playworks.

Elizabeth Cushing is CEO of Playworks, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to using the power of play to bring out the best in every child. Elizabeth joined Playworks in 2004 and was named President and COO in 2011 and CEO in 2020. She leads Playworks' Executive Team and is responsible for the organization's strategy, operations and fiscal health. During her tenure Elizabeth has played a lead role in designing Playworks’ national scaling strategy including engaging national investors. Alongside founder, Jill Vialet, Elizabeth led the organization through a sustained period of growth from a San Francisco Bay Area-focus to a national organization with 14 teams across the country. As a result of strategic expansion, Playworks shares its unique brand of play and physical activity with 1,000 elementary schools reaching more than 1M children annually. For more than 30 years Elizabeth has served in leadership roles in nonprofit organizations focused on youth development, children's advocacy and women's issues.

In this conversation, we discuss:

✅ Simple ways educators can set expectations and rules to create structure and a sense of safety around recess

✅ How to use play as a reset and a preventative measure, instead of something that’s taken away from kids as a punishment

✅ How training kids as peer coaches can help decrease disruptive behaviors and help kids discover their own leadership potential

https://drkarendudekbrannan.com/bonus-using-recess-to-build-social-skills-and-help-students-discover-their-leadership-potential-with-elizabeth-cushing/

04/29/2026

Most schools say they “collaborate.” They hold team meetings. They talk about students. They review data.

But without clear infrastructure, those meetings become updates instead of decision-making engines, and multi-tiered systems of support become an extra burden for educators.

In this episode, I interview Kurtis Hewson from Jigsaw Learning to break down their Collaborative Response Team meeting format and explain why effective collaboration requires structure and not just good intentions. From who is in the room to how documents are used before, during, and after the meeting, they share the operational backbone that makes collaboration actually move student outcomes.

Kurtis Hewson is an award-winning former administrator and teacher, as well as post-secondary teaching faculty. He is the co-founder of Jigsaw Learning and co-author of Collaborative Response: Three Foundational Components That Transform How We Respond to the Needs of Learners (Corwin, 2022). Kurtis works with districts and schools nationally and internationally to establish Collaborative Response frameworks and interacts with thousands of educators each year.

If you care about MTSS, intervention systems, or building-level leadership, this episode will shift how you think about team meetings and collaboration.

In this interview, we discuss:

✅ Why the Collaborative Team Meeting framework helps educators move from between “talking about students” to making strategic, forward progress that changes school-wide practice

✅ How structured documents before, during, and after meetings create clarity and accountability and psychological safety

✅ How to capture action items in real time and encourage innovative thinking

✅ Why the Collaborative Team Meeting requires specific roles, and how these roles determine whether a meeting moves forward or feels like busywork

Listen in here: https://drkarendudekbrannan.com/ep-257-how-to-go-from-talking-about-students-to-changing-school-systems-with-kurtis-hewson/

04/15/2026

When schools talk about improving engagement, student wellness, or school climate, it often turns into assemblies, themed weeks, or standalone initiatives.

When schools talk about community engagement, student wellness, or school climate, they often turn into assemblies, themed weeks, or standalone initiatives.

In this episode, I invited Lauren Porosoff from The Teacher Nerd to unpack why a focus on engagement and wellness must be woven into the daily fabric of the school experience to have lasting impact.

Lauren is an educational consultant who helps schools design learning environments where community values like equity, empathy, and creativity emerge from the instruction itself. She was a teacher for 18 years, most recently at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York. She’s taught the 2nd, 5th, 6th, and 7th grades, mostly in English and history, and has also served as a diversity coordinator, a grade dean, and a leader of curricular initiatives. Lauren develops tools and protocols that transform the psychological experience of school for teachers and students. She’s developed applications in instructional design, social-emotional learning, professional development, and anti-bias action.

In this conversation, we discuss:

✅ What “compensatory programs” mean in the context of wellness, belonging, and community engagement.

✅ Why one-off events and initiatives aren’t sufficient for supporting student mental health and well-being.

✅ How to embed protective factors like connection into instruction and routines.

✅ The impact of technology on engagement and agency (plus a writing example)

You can listen to the episode here: https://drkarendudekbrannan.com/ep-256-student-wellness-is-a-design-decision-not-a-siloed-activity-with-lauren-porosoff/

04/01/2026

In episode 255 of De Facto Leaders, I elaborate on the concept of using vocabulary as a large “container”, so you can design sessions efficiently without sacrificing quality.

I talk about why more experienced clinicians often struggle to make their interventions scalable, and why this gets in the way of carryover.

I also share the five “containers” I use in my Language Therapy Advance Foundations program that can support skills like reading, writing, spelling, and language processing in ways that can be reinforced outside sessions.

If you have a ton of knowledge relating to language and executive functioning, but don’t know how to organize it into a cohesive system…

If you’re getting results in sessions, but it takes a ton of effort on your part and consumes all your capacity…

If you’re able to scaffold and model “on-the-fly”, but struggle to explain your techniques to others so they can replicate them…

Then you’ll find this concept of “containers” really useful.

You can listen here: https://drkarendudekbrannan.com/ep-255-five-clinical-containers-to-design-your-language-therapy-system/

03/18/2026

Many experienced SLPs think they just need to plan better.

Tweak the activity.

Adjust the visuals.

Try a new printable or protocol.

But what if none of that is the real problem?

What if your sessions are already so skillful that no one else can reinforce what you're doing?

🧠 What if the very clinical decision-making that gets you results is the thing preventing generalization?

In episode 254 of De Facto leaders, I share the top three pieces of unconventional advice I give SLPs when they’re designing their language therapy system.

It’s not just about what you should do, but about what you SHOULDN’T do

You can listen to the episode here: https://drkarendudekbrannan.com/ep-254-three-pieces-of-unconventional-advice-i-give-slps/

03/05/2026

“Education isn’t a business” is a thing people say when they’re upset about how the school systems are being run.

But education actually IS a business. Saying otherwise isn't going to change reality.
If you’re frustrated about how the school systems work, you can continue to wish this wasn’t the case…

Or you can accept how things actually are an+d learn what to do about it.
In this podcast episode, I share how that looks for school clinicians supporting language and cognition.

In the episode, I share:

✅ Why people who have no classroom experience get hired into educational leadership positions.

✅ Why good teachers or clinicians struggle when they get into school leadership, even if they were amazing at working with students.

✅ The “business” skill you can learn that will boost generalization beyond your language therapy sessions.

Listen in here: https://drkarendudekbrannan.com/ep-253-education-is-a-business-lets-stop-pretending-it-isnt/

Address

Bloomington, IL

Website

http://drkarendudekbrannan.com/blog

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Dr. Karen Dudek-Brannan posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The School

Send a message to Dr. Karen Dudek-Brannan:

Want your school to be the top-listed School/college in Bloomington?