Jael Bootsma

Jael completed her Masters of Science in Clinical Language, Speech and Hearing Sciences from the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands in 2015. Prior to that, she completed a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics at the University of Amsterdam and a Bachelor of Science in Speech Therapy from the University of Applied Sciences Utrecht. She worked as a pediatric speech-language therapist in several children's rehabilitation hospitals in The Netherlands. She is specialized in early intervention of speech, language and communication problems in children with complex communication needs. Jael is currently a PhD student in the School of Rehabilitation Science at McMaster University, working under the supervision of Dr. Jan Willem Gorter. Jael currently examines the validity and reliability of the C-BiLLT, an accessible instrument to measure language comprehension in individuals with severe motor impairments who cannot speak.