Eileen Devaney, director of S.E.E.D.S. of the Willistons, has been selected business person of the year by the Chamber of Commerce of the Willistons for her long-standing community service as a speech pathologist.
“I think she’s an outstanding person who’s made a great contribution to this community and the kids she has helped,” Chamber of the Willistons President John Marsala said.
Devaney opened S.E.E.D.S., which stands for Speech Education Evaluation and Developmental Services, in 2005 after spending several years in private practice as a speech pathologist.
A 30-year resident of East Williston with her husband, Jim, she has more than 30 years of experience as a speech pathologist.
“I love being able to help people. I enjoy being about to diagnose what is wrong with a child. I enjoy finding the problem and fixing it,” Devancy said. “I love to see the improvement – it’s great. And even with children with autism, you hope something is going to improve.”
Devaney, 64. said she was pleasantly surprised when Marsala recently told her she had been selected as business person of the year. She will be formally honored by the Nassau County Chambers Association at an Oct. 17 breakfast honoring business persons of the year selected by chambers of commerce across the county.
“I was honored. I was taken aback,” Devaney said. “I know that I work hard and it was nice to hear somebody say that to you.”
Devaney’s was a student at Hunter College, where she earned bachelors in education and communication, when she took a course speech pathology that captured her imagination.
“I took a course and it was very interesting and I have grown to love it more each day,” Devaney said.
She then went on to earn a masters degree in speech pathology at Adelphi University.
After graduating from Adelphi, Devaney took a job at BOCES as a speech pathologist traveling in a portable classroom going to private schools. She then worked for eight years in a friend’s private practice, working part time as she balanced her responsibilities as a mother of four children.
In 1990, she said, she began seeing a few clients a week in her East Williston house, first working in a guest room and then moving to the basement.
As the business grew, she hired staff members and eventually outgrew her basement.
Devaney said she changed the name of the business from Vocational Consultants to S.E.E.D.S. of the Willistons, moving into her current location at 129A Hillside Ave. in Williston Park in 2004.
She currently has two occupational therapists and one special education teacher on staff in an office space that has doubled in size over the last several years as her practice has continued to expand.
“It’s much larger that it was,” Devaney said.
Her patients range in age from two years old up to adults who’ve had strokes or stutter.
Devaney currently has one adult patient in his 70s, but her clients are primarily children.
One of the biggest changes in her practice is the much higher incidence of autism, she said, and the higher incidence of mild cases of autism that are now diagnosed. She said she remembers reading just a few pages about autism in her speech pathology college text years ago.
“It really wasn’t around 30 years ago. Not as much was known about it in treating it,” Davaney said. “You have to use a multi-sensory approach. They don’t learn in the same way other children do.”
Devaney is a member of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association, the New York State Speech-Language Hearing Association, the Long Island Speech-Language Hearing Association, and a past president and member of the American Academy of Private Practice in Speech Pathology and Audiology. She is currently the organization’s membership chairperson.
She also spent two years on the advisory board for Pearson Publishing Company, which publishes speech pathology texts.
She is also currently secretary of the Chamber of Commerce of the Willistons, an organization which she credits with helping her to grow S.E.E.D.S.
Devaney said most of her referrals come from previous patients or parents of previous patients. She said she also works by referral from area school districts, including East Williston, Mineola, Herricks and New Hyde Park-Garden City Park.
