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

Building confidence, positive self-talk, and strategic planning skills for writing (with Dr. Nelly Kaakaty)

The writing process comes with internal resistance, even for strong writers.Most people who say they enjoy writing don’t enjoy the entire process; particularly the “ge...

High-impact tutoring and branding your academic coaching services (with David Schipper)

High-impact tutoring has a wide body of evidence to support its efficacy, but how do you know what is and isn’t “high-impact”?Is it better to brand yourself as an acad...

A behind-the-scenes look at EdTech startups and curriculum companies (with Ross Romano)

Many of my colleagues working in the public sector are skeptical of companies selling products to school districts. I’ve felt some of this skepticism myself as I’ve se...

Reframing the purpose of social narratives, video modeling, and social skills lesson plans

Many people treat social skills groups as if they’re the complete package, when in fact they’re just one part of a bigger service plan. When we “lesson plan” we can’t ...

Scaffolding syntax and semantics for non-readers and redefining life skills

Syntactic use is considered an “academic” skill that’s useful for reading comprehension and writing, but the impact of sentence comprehension goes way beyond school.Ou...

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