Linda L. D’Antonio, Ph.D. is a renowned expert in communication disorders with more than 30 years experience in healthcare. Dr. D'Antonio is a Speech-Language Pathologist with specialization in pediatric speech disorders. She has many years of experience as a clinician, educator, and researcher and has   dedicated her career to the evaluation and case management of children with complex communication   impairments associated with craniofacial disorders. She is a pioneering researcher with more than 225 publications in the medical literature. She is known globally for her work on communication disorders associated with cleft lip and palate, particularly evaluation and management of velopharyngeal dysfunction.   She is a regularly invited speaker at professional meetings and hospitals worldwide and is frequently called   upon as an expert witness in legal cases involving speech disorders in children. Dr. D’Antonio has held academic appointments at some of the nation’s leading medical centers including Washington University in St Louis, University of California Irvine, and Loma Linda University. She has extensive experience in   promoting and establishing surgical care and interdisciplinary rehabilitation services for individuals with cleft palate both in the US and in developing countries. She has served on several cleft palate-craniofacial teams   in the US and has acted as consultant to many teams and centers around the world. She has extensive  experience working in developing regions of the world. From 2000 to 2012 she served as a member of the Medical Advisory Board for The Smile Train, an international non-profit children's charity committed   to treating children with cleft palate around the world. Partnering with The Smile Train and colleagues   in several host countries she was able to engage in a number of large-scale projects that encompassed   training of professionals across China, India and Sub-Saharan Africa. Through her long and close collegial   relationship with Drs. Shprintzen and Golding-Kushner, Dr. D’Antonio became familiar with velo-cardio- facial syndrome long before many clinicians believed that there was such a diagnostic entity. As a result, she   has had many years experience and extensive clinical expertise diagnosing and treating speech disorders associated with VCFS. Her work with VCFS has led to seminal research on the speech disorders associated with VCFS and she has written many scholarly papers and chapters on the topic and she has spoken at   many professional meetings on various aspects of the syndrome. Dr. D’Antonio now provides evaluation, therapy and case management services for children with speech disorders through her private practice, Communication Partners, in Redlands, CA. The hallmark of Dr. D’Antonio’s philosophy is the use of carefully designed, individually tailored intervention plans using evidence-based methods and focusing at all aspects   of communication. Another principle that characterizes Dr. D’Antonio’s approach to intervention is the active involvement of the child’s family and caregivers in all stages of the child’s therapy, leading to effective and   efficient outcomes. Dr. D’Antonio has recently developed an active teletherapy practice allowing for the delivery of speech therapy for children in locations where expert services are not readily available.