Ms. Rafaela Padín-Soto, M.S., CCC/SLP— Founder

Rafaela Padín-Soto founded Dorado Therapy & Evaluation Center  - DTEC, during the summer of 2003 in response to parent’s requests for a need of support services for early education children in areas of speech-language, occupational therapy and psychological services in the area of Dorado, Puerto Rico.  Ms. Padín-Soto has over 30 years experience as an educator and speech-language pathologist.  She is a graduate of the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and holds a Master of Science from Texas Christian University in Speech-Language Pathology with specialty in bilingual population.

Ms. Padín’s speech-language therapy experience has been diverse.  She has worked in private and public schools in Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands (USVI) in the area of speech-language therapy.  In addition, she has worked as student teaching coordinator, and clinic supervisor.  Ms. Padín-Soto enjoys working as a member of a team, with teachers, occupational therapists, psychologists, and parents to implement speech and language therapy in schools and naturalistic environments.  During 13 years, Rafaela worked in the Education and Technology Department in the area of Special Education- Communication disorders at American University of P.R.  This experience provided her with the opportunity to learn, observe and put into practice methods and strategies to help children develop reading and writing skills.  Since the acquisition of DTEC, Rafaela has been able to work with universities as a clinical instructor, supervising master degree student’s who practice at her clinic.

Living in the area of Dorado has provided Rafaela with the unique opportunity to work with children who are developing in a bilingual Spanish/ English or monolingual English educational environment, who come from diverse cultures, and are learning or being exposed to another language:  English, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, Arabic and Cantonese.

Rafaela holds ASHA’s (American Speech Hearing Association) Certificate of Clinical Competence since 1985, Puerto Rico SLP license and Test administrator from BJ Testing and Evaluation for home educators. Amongst the areas of experience are:  articulation, phonological processing disorders, receptive and expressive language (delays and disorders), childhood apraxia of speech, stuttering, accent reduction, development of simultaneous languages and language related areas: reading and writing.