Our Mission & Vision
LEAP (Language Empowers All People) builds speech, language, and communication skills that advance success in the classroom, the workforce and the community.
We use our distinctive speech language expertise to implement programs that build strong oral language foundations.
LEAP (Language Empowers All People) builds speech, language, and communication skills that advance success in the classroom, the workforce and the community.
We are a non-profit organization led by certified speech-language pathologists that conducts parent workshops, provides collaborative curricula for educators, and teaches youth in the metropolitan Chicago area and selected Downstate communities. We use our distinctive speech language expertise to implement programs that build strong oral language foundations that prepare children, teens and young adults to become proficient readers and learners, as well as engage more constructively with their peers, teachers and employers.
Educational disinvestment has resulted in many Black and Brown children in under resourced communities receiving diminished learning opportunities and scarce academic supports. LEAP was formed to help address this disparity in education resources as it relates to the areas of language and communication. After working directly with children from under resourced communities themselves, Dr. Gottfred and Dr. Lybolt, Ph.D., decided to exponentially expand LEAP’s impact by offering trainings for teachers, tutors, and educators on how to engage students in carefully structured, research-based lessons and activities that would significantly build students’ oral and written language skills.
Thirty years later, LEAP continues to carry out its mission in low-resource classrooms across Chicago, its surrounding suburbs and targeted Downstate communities. With a highly experienced staff representing decades of collective experience, LEAP has reached tens of thousands of teachers, students and families through research-based language and literacy development programs, positively impacting their success in the classroom, the workplace and the community.
