ABOUT THE AUTHORS Brubaker Books have been highly praised and used by speech-language pathologists and their clients for decades. It was started by Susan Howell Brubaker in 1974 as she was starting her career working as a speech-language pathologist at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan. Her caseload was quickly filled with adults who had suffered strokes and related neurological disorders. Finding herself with these highly motivated, fairly high-level patients and few available appropriate materials, she began to develop her own worksheets. Susan worked to make sure the material was suited for adults, that it might key into a special interest, would be thought-provoking and challenging, – but fun, functional, and relevant. The small pile of papers grew to a large one and formed the basis of the original Workbook for Aphasia – the blue book. The original version was published in 1978 with Wayne State University Press and thus began a long relationship with Beaumont, Wayne State Press, computers, and late-night brainstorming sessions.

Since that time Susan went on to write 4 more workbooks, Sourcebooks and other materials. An unexpected and interesting observation was how patients really latched on to their book, carried it proudly with them and showed it to others. They compared book colors in the waiting room and many returned with more pages completed than assigned.

In 2000 Susan was joined by colleagues at Beaumont, Carolyn Doty and Lisa Mammoser, both speech and language pathologists. They began as consultants and then got the authoring bug too and joined with Susan to produce and publish the Flex Your card series and the Complex Challenges series. The emphasis with the latest products is to address higher level treatment for adults and adolescents challenging the patient while engaging them to do more. Strategy usage is key.

These authors continue to be clinicians first as they continue their SLP careers at Beaumont Health. Even with the number of products on the website today, people continue to ask for more materials with an emphasis on one aspect or another. While there is never enough time to create, keep coming back. You never know when Susan, Carolyn and Lisa will have completed their next project.

If you have used the products, we would enjoy getting your feedback. Contact us and let us know your experiences.