Speech and Language Pathology

Lori O’Keefe

Speech Language Pathologist – Clinic Director Mississauga & SLP Clinical Lead

Mississauga

Butterfly Paediatric Therapy - Lori O'KeefeLori is a passionate Speech- Language Pathologist who comes to us from the East Coast. After graduating from St. Thomas University in New Brunswick with a Bachelors of Arts in Psychology, she pursued her Masters of Clinician Science in Speech- Language Pathology at Western University.  Empowering and supporting families is important to Lori and she loves the opportunity Butterfly affords her to focus on this.

Lori is passionate about ensuring children have the absolute best start in life by utilizing their strengths to expand their communication skills. She enjoys working with children and their families and has experience in a number of areas including language development, social communication, stuttering, speech sound production and reading skills. Lori has a keen interest in motor speech difficulties and has taken a number of continuing education courses in this topic area in addition to being PROMPT certified. An avid reader, literacy is another passion of Lori’s and she is trained in the ‘ASCEND Smarter Intervention Structured Literacy Approach’ to help support struggling readers.

Get to know Lori:

  • If Lori could only eat one food for the rest of her life, it would be french fries! Extra fun fact: she grew up in the French Fry Capital of the World.
  • If Lori had to compare herself to a Disney character, it would be Rapunzel due to her long hair.
  • Lori is embarrassed to admit the movie “Scooby Doo Zombie Island” scares her, but her sisters agree!

Marika Robillard

Speech Language Pathologist

Mississauga

Marika is a Speech-Language Pathologist with an undergraduate degree from Laurentian University and a master’s degree from Western University, both in the field of Speech-Language Pathology. Marika has previous experience working as a school-based SLP, which helps her better understand the skills children need to succeed in school and how best to navigate the system of school supports. She is now loving working in private practice where she can spend more time focusing on each individual client and family, and working directly with parents and caregivers. Marika loves supporting autistic clients and their families and learning about each individual child’s unique interests, strengths and challenges. She has taken the “Meaningful Speech” course where she learned more about the “other” natural way of developing language (Gestalt Language Processing). She truly enjoys applying what she’s learned in this course to better understand her clients who learn in this way, and to help them continue to build on the language they have already acquired. Getting to know each child and their unique style of communication is one of Marika’s favourite things about working at Butterfly!

Fun Facts About Marika:

  • If Marika could have a super power, it would be teleportation! She has never been a fan of cars and highways and would love to never have to drive again.
  • If Marika was on a deserted island and her needs were met, she would also bring her cat Jiji (who she could never live without) and a hula hoop or aerial hoop.
  • If Marika was a celebrity, she would be famous for her aerial hoop skills.

Jessica Leggett

Speech Language Pathologist – Media/Marketing Lead

Burlington

Butterfly Paediatric Therapy - Jessica LeggettJessica received her Masters Degree in Speech Language Pathology from Western University. She has had many opportunities throughout her studies and years at Butterfly to work with children of all ages with a variety of communication difficulties including: speech sound disorders (articulation), language delays, fluency disorders (stuttering), and motor speech disorders. Jessica’s passion especially lies within early language learning and articulation therapy! She also believes wholeheartedly in family-centred care. She is passionate about helping children find their way to successful communication and loves to watch each of her clients find their voice and spread their wings!

Get to know Jess:

  • If Jess could be an animal, she would be an octopus because she loves being in water, and octopi are extremely flexible and adaptable.
  • If Jess could only eat one food for the rest of her life it would be pasta! She loves carbs, especially pasta.
  • If Jess could live anywhere in the world, she would live in Slovenia! She was able to travel there recently and loved it so much, she would love to go back!

Kelsey Argue

Communicative Disorders Assistant

Mississauga

Butterfly Paediatric Therapy - Kelsey ArgueKelsey is a passionate Communicative Disorders Assistant. She received her undergraduate degree from Western University and completed her Communicative Disorders Assistant program at Durham College. Kelsey is dedicated to helping individuals improve their communication skills and overcome any difficulties they may have in expressing themselves or understanding others. Kelsey has experience working with children of all ages, who have experienced a wide range of communication challenges, including speech and language delays, articulation and motor speech disorders, and fluency disorders.

Get to know Kelsey:

  • Kelsey’s silliest talent is that she can fold her tongue into the shape of a clover! Only around 15% of people can do this!
  • Kelsey couldn’t live without her chapstick. Specifically, Burt’s Bees Lip Balm (with Vitamin E & Peppermint)
  • Kelsey is most like Belle from Beauty and the Beast as she is constantly seeking new knowledge and opportunities like Bell, and she is not afraid to define what she believes in.

Holly Smith

Communicative Disorders Assistant

Burlington

Butterfly Paediatric Therapy - Holly SmithHolly is a wonderful Communicative Disorder Assistant. She graduated from Brock University with a Bachelor’s degree in Speech and Language Sciences. She then pursued a post graduate certificate program in Communication Disorders from St. Lawrence College in Kingston. After graduating Holly worked in a private clinic where she had the pleasure of working with a large range of clients with varying levels of need and diagnosis. She then accepted a job in the Halton School Board where she worked with students with pragmatic goals as well as students on trials for AAC devices. Holly thoroughly enjoys working with children and youth and giving them chances to shine. The sessions she provides are always engaging and she works hard to incorporate the child’s interests to best foster generalization.

Fun Facts About Holly:

  • If Holly could be any animal, she would be a duck as they are a superior animal that can swim, fly and run!
  • Holly’s silliest and rarest talent is that she can peel a banana with her toes.
  • The song “Starlight” by Taylor Swift best describes Holly.

Jhanvi Shah

Speech Language Pathologist

Mississauga

Jhanvi is a Speech-Language Pathologist with a Bachelor of Arts in Cognitive Science of Language from McMaster University and a Masters Degree in Speech-Language Pathology from the University of Toronto. She is a recent graduate and is excited to begin her career at Butterfly! She has had many opportunities throughout her studies to work with children of all ages with a variety of communication difficulties including: language delays, speech sound disorders (articulation), fluency disorders (stuttering), and social communication disorders. Jhanvi’s passion especially lies within early language learning! She is passionate about helping children achieve successful communication through their strengths and abilities. She is a strong advocate for multimodal communication and family-centred care.

Get to know Jhanvi:

  • If Jhanvi could be any animal, she would be a panda because she loves her naps as much as they do.
  • Jhanvi’s superpower would be teleportation so that she can travel the whole world.

Jhanvi is a big bookworm! If given the opportunity, she can read 3+ novels in a day.

Krupa Sangam

Communicative Disorders Assistant

Mississauga

Butterfly Paediatric Therapy - Team: Krupa SangamKrupa graduated from the Youth and Children studies program at Wilfrid Laurier University with a large focus on Child Psychology in 2018. Krupa’s interest to work with children stemmed at a much earlier point in her life. She is a trained Indian Classical dancer and has graduated from the dance form known as Bharatanatyam, in the year 2014. In high school, Krupa began volunteering and eventually teaching children at Sri Sanskriti Dance Academy. This sparked immense interest in pursing a career in Youth and Children studies. Working with individuals from the ages of 4-40 has helped Krupa gain a lot of perspective on gaging, working alongside, and learning about this age group. Krupa has thoroughly loved every bit of the experience. She has always seen herself working with children with exceptionalities and realized she wanted to dedicate her time to working with individuals on the spectrum.

Krupa had various opportunities during her undergrad career to participate in Community Service Learning programs where she spent most of her semesters volunteering with the school boards. Post-graduation, Krupa was keen on specializing and really getting to know the autism population. She began this venture when she first volunteered at ErinoakKids. This helped enhance and solidify her love for this field, which then prompted her to educate herself further

She graduated from the Behavioural Sciences program at Humber and worked as an ABA therapist for several years with a wide range of various different client profiles. Gaining that experience was beautiful. This path paved her next journey, which then brought her to the Speech world. Krupa took another leap of passion and is now a Communicative Disorders Assistant (CDA). She recently graduated from the CDA program at Georgian college this past August.

Krupa is inspired to grow and build her career further as a CDA at Butterfly Paediatric Therapy, she looks forward to offering clients with the utmost support and can’t wait to see them all reach their full potential! As she enters the world of speech, she’s extremely excited to provide therapy for individuals that require assistance with their communication skills, speech and language delays, fluency disorders, articulation disorders and so much more!

Fun facts about Krupa:

  • Krupa grew up for four years in Lusaka, Zambia and spoke a few words of Swahili as a child.
  • Krupa’s a music junkie, you can find almost all genres on her spotify playlist!
  • Her all-time favourite movie is the 1965 classic, “The Sound of Music”.