Melanie Durand

Speech Language Pathologist

Contact Information

mdurand@seattleschools.org
(206)252-5550

Personal and Professional History

I did my training in Speech/Language Pathology at Columbia University in New York (class of 1990,) and my husband and I moved to Seattle in 1991. After working for 3 years as the pediatrics therapist at Northwest Hospital, I started working for the Seattle Public School District, and have been here ever since, except for maternity leaves when our 2 children were born (aged 12 and 5.) Many SLPs serve more than one school; I have been at Olympic Hills Elementary for most of my tenure with the District, along with a second (and sometimes third) school. I am happy to be at Sacajawea this year, in partnership with parents and teachers to help students maximize their communication skills.

I love my work, because I love children, and because I feel that good communication skills will take you far in life. For students, good communication increases access to all areas of curriculum. I aim to make speech therapy sessions fun, so I incorporate play and games as I am able while we work on speech sounds, auditory comprehension, phonemic awareness, fluency, social communication, or verbal expression. In my experience, this keeps students motivated and helps them to keep coming back with a positive attitude.

Schedule for 2007-2008

    Mondays and Wednesdays at Sacajawea
    Tuesdays and Thursdays at Olympic Hills