Karen Melvin
Overview
Karen is a Speech and Language Therapist from Northern Ireland with almost 20 years’ experience specialising in working with Adults with Learning Disabilities in Community and Inpatient settings. Since 2010, she has been a Clinical/Service Lead SLT for a regional NHS team whose focus has been on working collaboratively with people with learning disabilities to develop a holistic service that is truly person-centred.
In addition, Karen is a Registered Intermediary (accredited through the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland) and works with victims, defendants and witnesses of all ages who have communication differences to support them through police interview and court. She is a visiting lecturer at Ulster University for the Adult Learning Disability component of the Undergraduate Speech and Language Therapy Course.
Karen has personal experience with neurodivergence as the sister of a learning disabled & autistic adult and as a parent to an Autistic daughter who also has ADD. She is passionate about kind and sensitive support for autistic people of all ages and has a particular interest in the use of AAC (Alternative and Augmentative Communication) for non-speaking autistic and learning disabled people.