About Dr. Beth

Background and Experience

Dr. Beth Nottingham has been drawn to working with children for as long as she can remember. She majored in communication sciences and disorders at SUNY Geneseo in upstate New York, graduating cum laude in 2002. While there, she played lacrosse and field hockey, and was active in organizing events and volunteering with the Student Athlete Advisory Board, serving as president her senior year. After finishing her B.S., she decided to move South!

She continued her studies at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. This program fostered her first love of working with children with autism spectrum disorders, and many of her clinical placements included working in schools and clinics with children with autism and communication and behavioral challenges. The flexibility of the program afforded Dr. Beth the opportunity to accrue all of her clinical hours and complete her course work within four semesters- completing her Master’s Degree at the top of her class, and graduating a semester early.

After graduation, she moved to Baltimore and worked at the Kennedy Krieger Institute, working at both the LEAP program and the CARD outpatient clinic. She started seeing patients with autism and feeding challenges and started taking continuing education courses related to working with children with feeding problems. Her curiosity grew, and so did her desire to return home to New York. After seven-and-a-half years at KKI, she moved back home, and inherited a caseload of children with feeding challenges in an Early Intervention Program. While in New York she continued to expand her clinical knowledge and skills, and added her lactation counselor credential in 2014. While working in the early intervention program, she had more questions than answers related to breastfeeding support for babies in the NICU, and her family was on the move again!

In 2015, she returned to JMU to begin her PhD program. Her dissertation research centered around variations in breastfeeding support in NICUs across the United States. She completed all coursework within two years, and returned to Baltimore, Maryland to work back in direct clinical care while finishing her dissertation research. In 2018 she graduated and returned to working with birth-three population, specializing in feeding evaluation and treatment, and breastfeeding support.

Dr. Beth has presented her research and knowledge at local, state and national conferences. She has mentored students and licensed professionals in her many areas of expertise including working with children with autism spectrum disorders, breastfeeding, and feeding development. She has published two articles in peer-reviewed journals, taught graduate level courses, and provided hours of trainings to her colleagues. She has volunteered as a breastfeeding peer counselor for the WIC program, and facilitated a breastfeeding support group for nearly three years.