Christine Massinon joined the Buchel Speech & Language Group as a full-time clinician, after practicing with Southern Health-Santé Sud, based out of the Bethesda Regional Health Centre in Steinbach, Manitoba. As the sole-charge speech-language pathology clinician servicing adults for the southeast region of Manitoba, she independently designed and implemented treatment plans for adults facing a range of communication difficulties in acute care, rehabilitation, personal care homes, and in the community. She now focuses on adult and pediatric stroke and brain injury rehabilitation, the assessment and management of fluency and voice disorder among adults and children, treating acquired language disorders and aphasia, as well as accent modification. Her breadth of experience and insightful approach means that she can help patients face even the most challenging communication problems – not only in English, but also in French, as she is fluently bilingual.

Christine’s clinical experience extends beyond her years at the Bethesda Regional Health Centre and her time at the Buchel Speech & Language Group. Prior to accepting her position at Bethesda, she completed a clinical placement at Deer Lodge Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba. At Deer Lodge, she treated adults with impairments in acquired language, cognitive communication, voice, fluency, and swallowing. This treatment took place both at the Centre, and on an outpatient basis.

Before this, Christine spent time developing the clinical skills needed to effectively treat disorders and delays among school-age children and pre-schoolers. She took part in a clinical placement in Winnipeg School Division 1 where she evaluated children in French immersion programming, integrating speech and language treatment objectives with those of the classroom. She also worked with preschoolers during her clinical placement at the Corbett Clinic in Edmonton, Alberta.

Originally from a dairy farm in a rural, French community in Manitoba, Christine moved to Winnipeg to study at the University of Manitoba. There she completed her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Linguistics and Psychology – graduating on the Dean’s Honours List. She then moved to Edmonton to study at the University of Alberta and complete a Master of Science in Speech-Language Pathology from the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine. She is a registered member of the College of Audiologists and Speech-Language Pathologists of Manitoba (CASLPM) and has her clinical certification through Speech-Language & Audiology Canada (SAC).

Christine has had the opportunity to participate in and deliver various professional development activities while practicing. For example, in 2014 she became certified in the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), an augmentative and alternative communication intervention program for individuals with autism spectrum disorder. That same year, she underwent training to instruct nursing staff on the use of the Test of Texture Modified Diets (TTMD), a screening tool for residents of long-term healthcare facilities. She has also delivered training in the use of the Toronto Bedside Swallowing Screening Test (TOR-BSST) to healthcare professionals in acute care at the Bethesda Regional Health Centre.

More recently, Christine has attended Sheila MacDonald’s Cognitive Communication Disorders: Level 1 and Level 2 post-graduate courses, as well as completed training in the Camperdown Program for Stuttering, the Lidcombe Program for Pediatric Stuttering, Transgender Voice & Communication Training with Sandy Hirsch and Leah Helou, and attended Fall Voice Conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania