Volunteering Motivates Local Resident to Pursue Speech Therapy Career

When Emily Teed was a freshman at Bernards High School in 2001-2002, she needed to complete a 10-hour community service requirement. "My mom remembered supporting and visiting Matheny when she was a child," Teed says, "so, she suggested I volunteer at Matheny, too."

Teed began coming to the Matheny School and Hospital (now the Matheny Medical and Educational Center) on Saturday mornings, working with the recreation therapy department from 10 a.m.-noon. "I really enjoyed it," she says, "so it wasn't just the 10 hours. I came every Saturday for awhile and every other Saturday if I couldn't make it every week. Volunteering at Matheny made me realize I wanted to work with children with special needs." Matheny is a special hospital and educational facility in Peapack for children and adults with medically complex developmental disabilities.

Majoring in special education at Seton Hall University, Teed went on to earn her MS in speech-language pathology. She did an internship at Matheny and became a full-time speech-language pathologist there in August 2011.

Working with children who have medically complex developmental disabilities, she acknowledges, is "challenging, but I like a challenge. I like to be creative."  For example, many of Matheny's students are non-verbal, and, when they're swimming in Matheny's outdoor pool, there's no way to communicate with them because their communications devices are either battery-operated or electronic. So, Teed came up with a floating communications board. "Stuff like that gets me excited," she says. "Even just a small milestone makes you feel good. I'm working in the preschool with an occupational and physical therapist. One of the parents recently wrote a beautiful letter to us about how much her son's changed since he started here in July, how he's saying 'Mom' now and communicating and rolling over, reaching for a toy. It's really nice to hear that."

Teed's connection with Matheny, she points out, has deep roots. "My mom's side of the family has been in Peapack-Gladstone for over 100 years," she says. "My father grew up in Pottersville, and we lived in my great-grandparents' house on Holland Avenue. My parents knew a lot of people on Highland Avenue when there were only about six houses on the road."