My Story

Dr. Best has worked as an SLP for over 20 years in multiple different settings with all ages of clients from birth to 104 years of age.  Feeling frustrated with the lack of high-quality professional development for special education, she was inspired to create Creative Solutions for Education Group, LLC as an innovative small business to address and advocate for the rapidly changing educational needs of children and adults with disabilities, their families, and the educators and related service providers who teach them.

​

​Dr. Best earned a Ph.D. in language and literacy from Cardinal Stritch University, an M.A. from Indiana University in speech-language pathology, and a B.S. in communication sciences and disorders from Western Illinois University.  She holds a certificate of clinical competence (CCC) from the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association (ASHA) and is a licensed SLP in both Illinois and Wisconsin. Most recently, Dr. Best successfully completed the requirements to become an Assistive Technology Professional (ATP), an internationally recognized credential provided by the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA).  RESNA is the premier professional organization devoted to promoting and advancing the field of assistive technology.

​

Previous experience in higher education includes working as an assistant professor of special education at Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the clinical coordinator and adjunct professor in the speech-language pathology assistant program at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and an assistant professor of communication sciences and disorders at Saint Xavier University in Chicago, Illinois. 

​​

Outside of work, Dr. Best loves spending time with her family including her puppy, Luna.  She loves all things music and theatre-related as well as creating art, especially watercolor and mixed media.  A current passion project for Dr. Best is creating a multimodal, integrated learning curriculum to better engage learners who deserve more than interacting with screens and worksheets.  This project allows her to combine her artist side with her educational experience to help spark curiosity and improve learning for students who are often left to struggle with current educational tools and methods.