Tara Ferrara, M.S., CCC-SLP, Co-Founder & Co-Director
Tara received her Bachelor of Arts, with a major in speech and hearing sciences, and a minor in psychology from Indiana University in 2008. Additionally, she received her Master of Science in speech-language pathology from Adelphi University in 2010.
Tara holds a Certificate of Clinical Competence (CCC) from American Speech-Language-Hearing Association as well as a New York State License to practice Speech Pathology. Additionally, she is TSSLD Certified (Teacher of Students with Speech and Language Disabilities) in New York State.
Tara began her career at the Reece School in New York City, where she worked as a speech and language pathologist for 4 years. At Reece, she gained a great deal of experience working with children who have varying levels of learning differences, such as speech and language delays, sensory and auditory processing disorders, and social-emotional behavior challenges. Working at a special education school and providing private speech and language therapy, Tara realized that many children were in need of additional social skills support.
Tara’s knowledge, experience and deep compassion led her to join a partnership and create Social City.
Alexandra Spira, M.A., CCC-SLP, Co-Founder & Co-Director
Aly holds a Bachelor of Science in speech-language pathology from New York University, and a Master of Arts in speech-language pathology from the City University of New York at Queens College. Aly began her career at the Reece School, a special education elementary school in Manhattan where she interacted one-on-one with children with a wide variety of language, learning, emotional and developmental disabilities.
As a founding partner of Social City, Aly works closely with parents and professionals to target areas of need and develop specific skills for each child. She specializes in helping students internalize strategies that allow them to pursue their individual goals and ambitions.
Aly has dedicated her career to helping children build confidence and achieve success. Aly’s passion and excitement for working with children, and her creative and innovative teaching style, enable her to connect with her students and maximize their potential to succeed both in and out of the classroom.
Jaclyn zimmel, M.A., CCC- SLP, Program director
Jackie holds a Bachelor of Science in speech-language pathology from SUNY Geneseo, and a Master of Arts in speech-language pathology from St. John’s University. She holds a Certificate of Clinical Competence from the American Speech and Hearing Association and is a licensed Teacher of Students with Speech and Language Disabilities. While pursuing her master's degree, Jackie began her career as a teacher of students with speech and language disabilities in a preschool setting. Upon completion of her masters, she continued on to work with students in elementary and middle school, providing individual and group therapy. These experiences allowed Jackie to realize that she loves working with children and young adults of all ages!
Jackie has dedicated her career to helping children build their overall language and communication skills. She has a passion for working with children and collaborating with their families to ensure generalization of skills into every setting. Jackie’s therapeutic approach consists of creating a fun and engaging environment for children to learn and grow. She embraces each child as a unique individual and meets them at their current level to ensure they feel respected and successful.
Rebecca Bacon, M.s., CCC- SLP, Program Manager
Rebecca received her Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Speech-Language Pathology from Syracuse University. She holds a Certificate of Clinical Competence (CCC) from the American Speech and Hearing Association and is a licensed speech-language pathologist in both New York and New Jersey. Additionally, Rebecca is TSSLD certified (Teacher of Students with Speech and Language Disabilities) in New York State and SLS certified (Speech Language Specialist) in the state of New Jersey.
Rebecca has dedicated her career to supporting children and young adults’ social and communication needs. While earning her masters, Rebecca completed her externship placement with Dramatic Pragmatics, co-implementing weekly social skills group therapy sessions. From there, Rebecca worked at several New York City schools, including Aaron School. At Aaron School, she supported special education elementary and middle school students on social communication, executive functioning, expressive language, and receptive language goals for about 5 years. Over the summers, Rebecca worked at The Quad Manhattan, supporting twice exceptional campers’ social cognition needs, supervising classroom teachers, and creating social skills curricula for groups from preschool to teenage years. Additionally, Rebecca works one-on-one with private clients to strengthen their language skills and provide at-home carry-over.
Rebecca’s experience and passion in this field ensures success for students. She believes in building a strong rapport with students, skill building through fun and preferred interests, clear and scaffolded support, and collaboration with caregivers, teachers, and therapists to support student generalization across settings.
Rachel Crespi, M.S., CCC-SLP, Group Leader
Rachel received her Bachelor of Arts in Communication Sciences and Disorders at Pace University in 2019 and her Masters in Speech Language Pathology from Northeastern University in 2021. Rachel holds a Certificate of Clinical Competence (CCC) from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and a certificate as a Teacher of Students with Speech and Language Disabilities (TSSLD) in New York State.
Rachel has experience working in the school setting with students with varying needs, including social-pragmatics, autism (ASD), articulation, expressive and receptive language, and more. Rachel always works with the interdisciplinary team, including the parents and caregivers. Rachel believes that therapy that incorporates the child’s interests, is hands-on, and is in a safe environment will facilitate the child’s strengths and engagement. When Rachel is not working, she can be found reading in Central Park and trying different bakeries.
Hiba Naseem, M.A., CCC-SLP, TSSLD, Group leader
Hiba received her undergraduate degree in Communications at Michigan State University and completed her graduate degree in Communication Science and Disorders at Iona College. Hiba has had ABA training and worked as an ABA therapist before becoming a speech language pathologist. Hiba worked in a private practice clinic in Oakland, CA where she evaluated and treated clients with a variety of diagnoses. She mentored and supervised incoming clinicians to help them grow in the field.
Much of Hiba’s experience includes leading social learning groups and working on pragmatic skills with children who have diagnoses such as autism spectrum disorder and ADHD. Hiba finds significant benefit in collaborating with all caregivers including parents, teachers, and behavior therapists in order for students to generalize their skills across all settings. She looks forward to working on creative lesson plans for a fun and engaging environment where students learn to build and maintain various types of friendships and relationships.
Carli Valach-Sestito, M.S., Applied Developmental Psychology, Group leader
Carli attended Penn State University where she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology in 2014. She received her master’s degree in Applied Developmental Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh in 2017. Additionally, Carli received her teaching certificate from Moreland University, specializing in Prek-12 Special Education, in 2021.
Carli has been working with children for the past 15 years, most recently as a special education teacher at Esther B. Clark (EBC) School in Palo Alto, California. At EBC, Carli worked with students with a variety of diagnoses such as ADHD, ASD, depression, anxiety, emotional disturbance, specific learning disabilities, and more. As a special education teacher, she was a key part of an interdisciplinary team consisting of speech language pathologists, occupational therapists, marriage and family therapists, behavior Specialists, school administration teams, as well as parents and caregivers. She relocated to New York City in late 2022.
Carli believes that social-emotional learning is an essential part of a child’s educational experience. She strives to create social-emotional learning experiences that are meaningful and engaging to all students.
Melissa york, m.s., cCC-slp, GROUP LEADER
Melissa received her Bachelor of Science in Child Development from the University of Wisconsin and then received her Masters of Science in Speech Language Pathology from Hunter College. Melissa holds a Certificate of Clinical Competence (CCC) from American-Speech-Language-Hearing Association and a Teacher of Students with Speech and Language Disabilities (TSSLD) certificate.
Melissa has vast experience working with children with varying needs, including emotional, social-pragmatic, learning disabilities, and speech/language disabilities. Melissa worked in a high school and in an elementary school for children with Autism for the past 10 years. Melissa is devoted to her students and strives to make all therapy sessions engaging, fun, and functional. She is passionate about every individual she works with and customizes her lessons to meet every child's personal needs and goals. Melissa believes in a team based approach and works closely with parents, teachers, and other related service providers to promote generalization of skills across a variety of settings.