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About us

Smiling boy in a wheelchair at the Communication Horizons speech therapy clinic, with a Tobii Dynavox I-13 eye-tracking AAC device mounted to his chair. The device is set to the Motor Plan 66 vocabulary.

Everyone can communicate.  Everyone does communicate.  Everyone has the potential to increase their ability to communicate.

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We are a highly specialized speech and language therapy practice providing natural language intervention and augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) services for both people who can physically use their hands to reach out and touch the words they want to say and for people who have complex physical disabilities (e.g. cerebral palsy with Cortical Visual Impairment, Rett Syndrome, SMA), and need an alternate physical way to pick the words they want to say.  No disability is too complex.

We are committed to making sure our clients know and understand their options.​

​We provide access to a wide range of AAC devices and applications, are well versed in just about any program that’s out there, have the 15+ years of experience to apply when assisting with AAC programs that may be new or less familiar to us, and are constantly adding to our inventory.

Display of various AAC devices and access tools available for therapy and consultation at the Communication Horizons speech therapy clinic. The image shows eight different AAC devices, including two with eye-tracking, several with keyguards, six types of switches for switch-scanning, four types of styluses, and an adaptive joystick.

Current AAC devices, apps, and programs that we have access to and are well versed in include:

  • LAMP Word for Life

  • Unity / Unidad / CoreScanner

  • TouchChat

  • WordPower

  • Grid 3

  • TD Snap

  • Proloquo2Go & Proloquo

  • GoTalk Now

  • Avaz

  • Speak for Yourself

  • Flexspeak

  • Weave Chat

  • CoughDrop

  • PODD

  • PRC-Saltillo 

  • Accent devices with Look, NuPoint, and Aeroswitch

  • PRC-Saltillo NovaChat devices

  • TobiiDynavox I- Series

  • TobiiDynavox PCEye integrated with computer access

  • Smartbox GridPad devices

Headshot of Cynthia Heryanto, speech-language pathologist and owner of Communication Horizons. She is smiling, with shoulder-length curly brown hair, wearing a maroon shirt and gray cardigan

Cynthia Heryanto

M.S., CCC-SLP

Cynthia Heryanto, M.S. CCC-SLP is a licensed and certified speech language pathologist (SLP) through the American Speech and Hearing Association (ASHA) and the state of California.  She specializes in the evaluation and treatment of children and adults with complex communication needs related to a variety of diagnoses including cerebral palsy, autism, Rett syndrome, Down syndrome, childhood apraxia of speech, Angelman syndrome, and an array of rare genetic disorders.

Cynthia has been working with children and adults with developmental disabilities for over 20 years, starting as a teenager working in Summer camps for children and adults with developmental disabilities.  It was here that she was first introduced to the specialty area of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) while being trained to support the communication modalities of several of the campers.  She has been working as an SLP after obtaining her Master's degree in Communicative Disorders from San Francisco State University in 2009.

 

Throughout her career as an SLP, Cynthia has continued to focus on AAC in all of her positions with the goal of becoming highly specialized in providing treatment and assessments for individuals who would benefit from AAC.  She worked several years in a non-public school in the Bay Area that exclusively served children who were non-verbal and had multiple disabilities.  After moving down to Los Angeles, she became the first full-time SLP at NAPA Center, and played a substantial role in the initial development of their first speech therapy department.  After that she worked as an AAC consultant to other SLPs and families throughout Southern California, assisting them with their evaluations, providing instruction and guidance through the process of getting equipment paid for by insurance and MediCal, and providing training for successful implementation.

 

Cynthia has extensive experience with eye tracking, head pointing, and switch access technology on all high-tech communication devices, partner assisted scanning, and numerous AAC iPad apps and programs.  Cynthia has taught workshops and given presentations to hundreds of SLPs and families on a variety of topics related to AAC throughout the state and internationally. 

LAMP certifed professional
Meaningful Speech
ASHA Certified
A smiling young girl sits in a Rifton activity chair with a tray during a speech therapy session, using two adaptive switches to access an AAC app through two-switch auditory scanning.

Certificates and Training

  • Language Acquisition Through Motor Planning (LAMP) Certified Professional 

  • American Speech and Hearing Association Certificate of Clinical Competence

  • Meaningful Speech Natural Language Acquisition (NLA) Trained Clinician

  • Collaborative AAC Services in Inclusive Early Intervention Settings certificate holder through San Francisco State University

  • All Access: Expanding Opportunities for Individuals Using AAC and Alternative Access

  • Language and Literacy Intervention for Students with Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI) who use AAC

  • Introduction to PODD & PODD Alternative Access trained

  • Bridging PROMPT Technique to Intervention (Level 2) trained, PROMPT Institute

  • DIR 101: An Introduction to DIR® and DIRFloortime®

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