Center for Speech and Language Disorders
These people are NOT to be trusted. CSLD founder P...
These people are NOT to be trusted. CSLD founder Phyllis Kupperman is my former speech therapist. She preached politeness, professionalism, and good communication to me for 15+ years. When I finally demanded the same of her and her colleagues, she threw an hourlong temper tantrum in her office, whining and practically crying on my shoulder about how unfair I was for expecting more than good intentions from her and her colleagues.
Prior to this, Mrs. Kupperman repeatedly broke confidentiality just for fun. Evidently, her favorite phrase was "used to." She loved to humiliate me in front of her other clients and colleagues by telling them about what a self-centered, neurotic train wreck I was as a very young child -- before my therapy sessions with her helped me turn my life around, of course. But around the time of her temper tantrum, she began breaking every promise she made to help me. When I confronted her about this, she acted as though those promises never meant anything. Twice, she told me to view having to do everything all by myself as "a positive experience in growing up." Whenever I tactfully tried to reason with her via email, she ghosted me for days, weeks, or months on end. When she finally responded to me, she didn't even mention the problem I tried to discuss with her. I finally stopped communication with her after I realized she was never going to address or apologize for her and her colleagues' ethics violations.
I am not the only person who has had major problems with CSLD. Another former client left them a bad Yelp review that has apparently since been removed. In her review, she complained that CSLD failed to tell her that they were not in insurance plans until she walked in the door. She also claimed that they were "a revolving door" of therapists who were "in the wrong profession." Yet another Yelp reviewer has stated that CSLD is "a very incompetent therapeutic group to be avoided!" She alleges that they are highly disorganized and seemingly uninterested in their work -- misplacing doctors' referrals; failing to send out evaluations; and showing a complete lack of enthusiasm for their jobs and clientele.
More than half a dozen anonymous former CSLD employees have also criticized the company on Indeed and Glassdoor. They, too, have alleged extreme disorganization at CSLD. They have also claimed that CSLD overworked and underpaid them and forced them to travel exhaustively throughout the Chicago Area's charter school system after promising them time in the clinic. The most damning reviews allege continual psychological abuse at the hands of CSLD's current executive director, Karine Fiore.
CSLD has responded to these allegations by changing their name and contact information and not updating either on Yelp, Glassdoor, or Indeed. (They also refuse to disclose company information to the Better Business Bureau.) They are now called CHAT: Life Changing Speech Therapy. Their new URL is chatwithus.org. Their new street address is 310 S Main St D, Lombard, IL 60148. On their website and social media, they pretend that they have always been called CHAT and have always been committed to social justice. Social justice aside, they have never once apologized to, or even acknowledged their ethics violations against, me or any other former clients or employees that I'm aware of. Instead, they have quietly erased us from their official history.
Bottom line? Don't waste your time with them. They are more concerned about their image than anything else. You'll find out how much they truly care about you when they stop getting paid to care and can't use you to make themselves look good.
