Dr. Amanda Blackwell, EdD, SLPD, CCC-SLP

Adjunct

Email: amanda.blackwell@minotstateu.edu

Dr. Amanda Blackwell has lived and worked full-time in Guatemala for more than 9 years. She completed a clinical doctorate in speech-language pathology and started the official professional association for local Guatemalan speech therapists (SomosTLgt), which offers many continuing education opportunities for its 50+ members. She graduated with a Doctor of Education (EdD) degree from Murray State University in 2022, after completing a dissertation that laid the groundwork for creating a postgraduate degree program in speech-language pathology at a Guatemalan university – the first of its kind in Central America. She currently directs the speech therapy departments at FUNDAL (for individuals with deafblindness and multiple disabilities) and the Guatemalan Association of Down Syndrome (Down Guatemala) in their centers in three different Guatemalan towns, and runs an autism education social project for Spanish speakers called LUNA (on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook @lunautismo). With a Canadian colleague, Amanda recently launched an online course in Spanish about Natural Language Acquisition and Gestalt Language Processing in Spanish. She serves as an adjunct research fellow working with doctoral students in the SLPD program at Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions in Provo, Utah, and as a thesis advisor for students in the Master's Program in Early Literacy offered by the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala and the Network for Early Literacy in Central America and the Caribbean. Amanda is passionate about communication in all forms and loves to travel to collaborate with professionals around the world.