Michele Bogaty Blend
Michele Bogaty Blend, M.A., CCC-SLP
Michele Bogaty Blend is a speech-language pathologist who specializes in cochlear implant (re)habilitation. She has been a speech language pathologist for over 22 years. Over the years, Michele has worked in a variety of settings including public schools, hospitals, cochlear implant centers, private schools, as well as home and community-based early intervention centers. In addition, she has had a private practice focusing solely on children and adults with hearing loss, since 1998. Her varied experiences have allowed her to have a wealth of knowledge across a variety of issues of development.
Michele began her career working in a Massachusetts public school district, treating students with a variety of speech and language issues, including learning disabilities, autism, specific language impairments, and articulation disorders.
Subsequent to her time in that position, she worked in early intervention with families in their homes to help improve the speech and language of their infants and toddlers. She worked closely with psychologists, social workers, physical therapists, and occupational therapists. This is where Michele had her first interaction with children with hearing loss. She worked with parents as they decided upon the best communication mode for their children and worked with several schools for the deaf in Massachusetts to coordinate services.
After moving to NY in 1998, Michele had realized her passion lies in working with children with hearing loss and began working at the Cochlear Implant Center at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. She was the speech language pathologist on the team and was involved in the pre-implant evaluation and candidacy decision making process, performed auditory therapy post-activation, and re-evaluated children post-implant to help in making recommendations for school.
Michele then worked at Clarke NYC Auditory/Oral School as a speech-language pathologist. She worked with preschool and kindergarten children with hearing loss in both individual and small group sessions.
After a couple of years, Michele returned to the Cochlear Implant Center, which had moved to Manhattan Eye and Ear Infirmary, where she coordinated all speech and language evaluations for children during the implant candidacy process and treated children with hearing loss both pre- and post-implant. The center moved to New York Eye and Ear Infirmary after several years.
In 2005, while working part time in NYC, Michele began consulting part time at a public school in CT. She worked with children with hearing loss throughout the district, several of whom had just recently been implanted. Michele provided individual auditory therapy and worked together with the special education and regular education teams to train them on how to best meet the needs of children with hearing loss in their classrooms and on their caseloads. She took on the role of managing FM equipment and worked with the district’s consulting educational audiologist, as needed. In 2008, she became a full time employee of the district and now splits her time between working with students with hearing loss throughout the district and working as a speech language pathologist in the district’s integrated preschool.