Valley Speech Language and Learning Center

Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan, Ed.D, is a Bilingual Speech Language Pathologist and a Certified Academic Language Therapist. She is the Director of Valley Speech Language and Learning Center in Brownsville, Texas which was established in 1993. She also works with Texas Institute for Measurement Evaluation and Statistics at the University of Houston. Dr. Cárdenas-Hagan is the author of Esperanza (HOPE), a Spanish language program designed to assist students who struggle with learning to read. Her research interests include the development of early reading assessments for Spanish-speaking students and the development of reading interventions for bilingual students. She was the co-principal investigator of a longitudinal study funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Institute for Education Science that examined the oracy and literacy development in English and Spanish of Spanish-speaking children. She serves as the Vice President for the International Dyslexia Association and has authored curricular programs, book chapters, and journal articles related to oracy and literacy development for English language learners.

Our mission is to Educate and Empower.
Valley Speech is dedicated to providing comprehensive speech and academic language evaluations in addition to empirically validated treatment programs. The center also provides professional development services for teachers and therapists interested in providing effective interventions for language and literacy development.