About your therapist
Jennifer Gilmore
Jennifer is a board certified speech-language pathologist and owner of Fortis Therapy Services, LLC. She is licensed to practice in Maryland, proudly offering exceptional speech-language services to residents in her home state.
Jennifer received a Bachelor's degree in Hearing and Speech Sciences and a Master's degree in Speech-Language Pathology from the esteemed University of Maryland. Armed with a passion for learning, Jennifer pursued unique opportunities to expand her educational experience as a child-development research assistant, linguistics teaching assistant, and student clinician at the undergraduate and graduate levels as well as in a tele-therapy pilot program. Jennifer believes there is always knowledge to acquire and that learning opportunities must be persistently sought. As a seasoned clinician, Jennifer continually expands her clinical knowledge through workshops, conferences, continuing education courses, and diverse clinical experiences.
Jennifer began her career as a speech pathologist in a local public school system. She worked primarily at the secondary level with students diagnosed with speech/language impairment, specific learning disability, autism, intellectual disability, hearing impairment, emotional disturbance, multiple disabilities, and other health impairment. There, Jennifer provided highly skilled and individualized services to students with a variety of needs ranging from speech articulation errors impacting socialization to language deficits impacting educational advancement to students with limited to no verbal output requiring AAC devices and behavioral supports to reduce self-injurious behaviors. Jennifer became adept at assessing complex student needs, building strong relationships with students and parents, and creating unique Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) to ensure maximum academic success. With a solid foundation in the educational setting and an eagerness to continue to expand her expertise, Jennifer began working as a PRN therapist in a variety of settings.
In a private practice, Jennifer provided 1:1 skilled intervention to children from birth to school age and young adults. She expanded her expertise by implementing
treatment plans for language enrichment, attainment of developmental milestones, multi-modal communication systems, literacy skills, speech articulation, social language development, and parent trainings. In the inpatient and outpatient units of a rehabilitation hospital, Jennifer provided skilled intervention to adults experiencing acquired and/or degenerative neurogenic disorders on the Stroke, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and Spinal Cord Injury units. She expanded her expertise in evidence-based treatment of adult swallowing (dysphagia), language (aphasia), motor speech (dysarthria, apraxia), and cognitive-communication disorders (attention, memory, reasoning, problem solving, executive functioning). Finally, Jennifer ventured into the home care setting where she provided functional intervention to adults with a variety of diagnoses including stroke, TBI, head and neck cancer, dementia, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, heart disease, and pulmonary disease.
As a result of several years of vast and unique experience in the field of speech pathology, Jennifer founded Fortis Therapy Services, LLC to provide a hybrid treatment model that encompasses the most effective qualities of each therapy setting. The practice is carefully designed to provide highly skilled, highly individualized, and highly functional intervention without the constraints of high-caseload volumes, limited office hours, unwelcoming therapy rooms, or insurance regulations.
Never one to remain stagnant, Jennifer has pursued extensive continuing education hours to allow her to be highly specialized in the areas of stuttering, speech sound disorders, and orofacial myology. She is PROMPT trained and has completed a 28-hour training in orofacial myology. She is currently completing the rigorous process to become a Qualified Orofacial Myologist (QOM).
About our name
Fortis Therapy Services
"Fortis" is an adjective of Latin origin meaning brave, courageous, strong, powerful, resilient, and steadfast.
Our clients exude bravery and courage as they use articulation strategies in front of a classroom full of peers, implement stuttering strategies to order their favorite meal, enter the doctor's office to receive a frenectomy, advocate for themselves in an uncomfortable situation, and so much more.
Our parents and caregivers are strong and powerful. They work tirelessly to set up the home environment to ensure success, implement strategies to maximize functional communication, and ask difficult questions to ensure the best services are provided to their child, spouse, parent, and loved ones.
Our clinician is steadfast in her pursuit to provide the highest quality of speech-language services to each individual served.
Our logo captures the powerful brain to mouth connection that is essential for communication. Blue is incorporated as the color of bravery and dedication while green is incorporated as the color of renewal and growth.
"Fortis" embodies the life of our practice.