Kathy Dow-Burger

Kathy Dow-Burger, M.A., CCC-SLP, is a speech-language pathologist (SLP) and an Associate Clinical Professor. She is also the Co-Director of the University of Maryland Autism Research Consortium (UMARC) autism.umd.edu. Her clinical interests focus on autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and other social communication disorders, language-learning disabilities to include reading and written language, emergent literacy and stuttering.  Kathy is the founder and program designer of the Social Interaction Group Network for UMD students with Autism (SIGNA). She serves as a consultant to UMD’s Resident Life, and the Career Center and other campus departments in order to help these agencies work more effectively with UMD college students with ASD.  Kathy is a certified instructor in the implementation of the Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS) Adolescent and Young Adult programs and coordinates teen and young adult PEERS groups at the UMD Hearing and Speech Clinic. Kathy also coordinates PEERS certification trainings with UCLA's PEERS program developer, Dr. Elizabeth Laugeson on UMD's campus. Prior to joining the faculty at UMD, she was a speech-language pathologist at Kennedy Krieger Hospital, the Kennedy Krieger Center for Development & Learning Programs & Services and the Kennedy Krieger School in Baltimore, Maryland. In addition, she has worked as an SLP at the Katherine Thomas School in Rockville, Maryland as well as in Prince George’s County Public Schools.  Finally, Kathy, with her team of academic and clinical faculty, have developed and implemented a community-based, IRB-approved, research project where parents learn how to use effective language enrichment and emergent literacy interactions.