Kiera Hughes

Kiera Hughes

M.Sc., R.SLP, SLP(C)
Speech-Language Pathologist

Kiera began working at the Institute for Stuttering Treatment and Research (ISTAR) in March 2023, though she began her involvement with ISTAR in 2016 as a student clinician. Originally from Saskatchewan, Kiera completed her Bachelors in Linguistics at the University of Saskatchewan in 2014 and then went on to graduate from the Masters of Speech-Language Pathology program at the University of Toronto in 2017.

It was during a clinical placement in Kiera’s masters program when she first heard about ISTAR, and she then traveled to Calgary to take part in a children’s intensive clinic in the summer of 2016.

During her clinical placement at ISTAR’s Calgary clinic, Kiera developed many valuable clinical skills with fluency that helped shape her as a clinician. Upon graduation, Kiera moved from Toronto to Calgary and gained employment at a local agency working with young children and teens with a large variety of communication needs and special needs throughout Calgary public, private, and independent schools. Kiera also became an assistive technology specialist and provided a variety of alternative and augmentative communication tools to clients.

Throughout Kiera’s other endeavours she always held ISTAR in high regard and fondly recalled her placement there. When an opportunity to work at ISTAR came up Kiera was thrilled to be able to join the team at their Calgary office. Kiera looks forward to supporting fluency and communication in such a positive client focused environment.

Kiera has completed specialized training or holds certification in the following areas:

  • Comprehensive Stuttering Program (CSP)
  • Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets (PROMPT) – Level 1
  • More Than Words - The Hanen program for parents
  • Pragmatic Organization Dynamic Display (PODD) augmentative and alternative communication.
  • Language Acquisition through motor planning (LAMP) augmentative and alternative communication.
  • TouchChat augmentative and alternative communication system.
  • Brain Story Certification
  • Lidcombe Stuttering Treatment Program for preschool and school-aged children