Hi there, I’m Karen Dudek-Brannan!

I’m a Professional Development Specialist, SLP, and founder/owner/operate of Dr. Karen, LLC, a company focused on empowering therapists and educators to design interventions that support language, literacy, and executive functioning. In my current role, I develop engaging professional development and products that help school teams work together to get better results.

On the De Facto Leaders Podcast, I share up-to-date evidence-based practices, my own experience, and guest interviews designed to help pediatric therapists, educators, and aspiring school leaders design services that support social, emotional, and academic growth and set kids up for success in adulthood. Whether you want to learn effective strategies for your therapy session or classroom, be an influential leader on your team, or find creative ways to use your skills to advance in your career, I’ve got you covered. You can listen to the De Facto Leaders podcast on most popular podcast directories, and can scroll through past episodes on this page here.

Latest Episodes

Re-Release: ADHD and the Appeal to Nature Fallacy

In light of the mass amount of misinformation about ADHD, particularly regarding medication, I thought it was time to do a re-release of this past episode.*Disclaimer,...

The Art of Decluttering and Habit Stacking for Clinicians (with Marisha Mets)

I remember the first time I “Marie Kondoed” my therapy room and got rid of materials that were published before I was born. There were shelves of things I never used, ...

Goals and Accommodations for Executive Functioning

In this episode, we dive into the often-overlooked art of writing clear, measurable goals for executive functioning. Unlike other academic or functional goals, executi...

FAQs: Task-based goals vs. strategy goals, scaffolding for semantics and syntax, and going from decontextualized to contextualized

This session is a Q & A I did in the Language Therapy Advance Foundations member’s group relating to how to support students through semantic study and working on comp...

Making professional development and programming goals meaningful (with John Mihalyo)

Having someone observe your therapy room or classroom can feel awkward; whether it’s your boss doing your evaluation, or whether it’s a special service provider who’s ...

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