Early-Onset Parent Roundtable: Speech and swallowing

8:00 PM ET | 7:00 PM CT | 6:00 PM MT | 5:00 PM PT

Children with early-onset FSHD often struggle with speech and swallowing due to weak muscles around the mouth. Therapy can help! Our guest this month is Kiera Berggren, a research speech-language pathologist (SLP) in the Department of Neurology at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is currently actively involved in neuromuscular research studying orofacial strength and function as it relates to speech and swallowing in facioscapulohumeral dystrophy (FSHD) and myotonic dystrophy (DM). Additional studies are also ongoing looking at language skills in individuals with congenital DM. She is a doctoral candidate at James Madison University exploring orofacial changes in DM that affect swallowing. Kiera also works clinically with patients of all ages with neuromuscular diseases. She’ll share an overview of how FSHD affects speech and swallowing, current therapies, and answer your questions.

Join us for our monthly Early-Onset Parent Roundtable on the 3rd Tuesday of each month, where parents meet to exchange ideas, offer support, and gain insight to keep our children with FSHD as healthy and mobile as possible. We will have plenty of time for parents to exchange ideas and ask/answer questions from other parents.

We’d love your thoughts and participation. Please join us and bring your ideas, questions, answers, and tips and tricks.

• Once you join the group by submitting your RSVP for a meeting, you will not need to register for each month’s meeting. You will automatically receive monthly reminders and call-in/Zoom information. If you participated in one of our meetings in 2022, you are automatically a part of the group and do not need to register again. You may change your group membership at any time by emailing us at info@fshdsociety.org

Ally Roets & Sam Ray
Early-Onset Chapter Directors

Learn more about the Early-Onset FSHD Chapter: FSHDSociety.org/Early-onset-chapter