Rhonda Witherspoon’s career at Heartspring spans three different departments, two decades and countless lives changed. She has spent more than 25 years at Heartspring as a speech-language pathologist and has seen the organization as it has grown and expanded. Throughout her time here, some things have stayed the same. Rhonda loves seeing children make progress and watching their faces light up when they realize they have learned something new; that they can do what was once quite hard.

Rhonda’s career at Heartspring began as a speech-language pathologist in the residential school. From there, she moved into the preschool programs and then, finally, to Pediatric Services, where she is now. She has been able to work with a variety of children from infants to teenagers. Rhonda has many years of experience working with children with speech and language disorders, auditory processing deficits, Childhood Apraxia of Speech, Down syndrome, autism, and fluency disorders.

She has attended training through the Nature Explore program as part of Heartspring’s efforts to establish an outdoor classroom. She has worked to help make the treehouse an area for outdoor exploration, play and learning. Through her training, she is able to take her therapy and the children she serves outside to the tree house, exposing them to new learning experiences. She can provide therapeutic opportunities through physical activities, observation, artwork, conversation, or by simply getting dirty in the garden area or sandbox. Rhonda believes the change of scenery can make a huge difference in how much children are able to open up, engage and communicate with others.

In her free time, she enjoys reading, working out and quilting. Rhonda has three daughters, and her husband runs a local non-profit agency in Wichita. She has a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in Communication Disorders and Sciences from Wichita State University.