About Main Line Social Learning

Committed to Serving Clients in the Greater Philadelphia Area

     Colleen Barry

A summer job as an instructional aide at a private special education school turned into a career path for Colleen Barry. Colleen attended the Pennsylvania State University where she completed her B.S. in Special Education and Elementary Education. She has been a special education teacher of both Learning Support and Life Skills populations in public schools for the past eleven years. In 2010, she was introduced to the Social Thinking curriculum, created by Michelle Garcia Winner, and soon began to teach Social Thinking to high school students with diverse levels of academic achievement and social needs.

Colleen went on to earn her Master’s degree in Special Education and her Special Education Supervisory certification from the Pennsylvania State University. She focused her Master’s degree studies on her professional interests of best practices for individuals with Intellectual Disabilities, as well as examining scope and sequence for social skills curricula. Over the course of her career, she has attended multiple trainings related to Social Thinking run by Michelle Garcia Winner and Pamela Crooke. In October 2017, Colleen attended the Social Thinking Clinical Training in Boston and received the Level 1A Certification, making her one of the few professionals in the Greater Philadelphia area to have earned this certification. Colleen has not only implemented her learning in her classroom, but has conducted school-wide trainings on Autism and social learning challenges.

Colleen created Main Line Social Learning to help teenagers and adults who are bright, but have social learning challenges so they can continue to access social skills supports even after leaving school-based services.

Colleen is a member of:

• ASCEND
• The Council for Exceptional Children
• The National Association of Special Education Teachers
• Autism Society of America

In her free time, Colleen enjoys reading, exercising, shopping, and spending time with friends and family. She and her husband keep themselves busy raising their three young children.

     Victoria Silvestri

Victoria Silvestri is a graduate of East Stroudsburg University where she received her Bachelor’s degree in Rehabilitative and Human Services and minor in Psychology. She started her career in Special Education as a Special Education Assistant and continued on to teach social skills groups/individual sessions as a Behavioral Health Worker within the public school system. Victoria has integrated the Social Thinking curriculum of Michele Garcia Winner throughout her teaching and instruction and is very passionate about the importance of social skills training.

In May 2020, Victoria earned her Master’s degree in Special Education with a concentration in Applied Behavior Analysis from Saint Joseph’s University. She has implemented these principles and strategies into her social skills instruction to ensure overall success for her clients.
In her free time, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, traveling with her husband, and snuggling her long-haired dachshund.

To learn more, call us at (610) 609-0330.