Rachel Dorsey, M.S., CCC-SLP (she/her)
An Autistic Speech-Language Pathologist? How does that work?
Born and raised in Gainesville, FL I attended the University of Florida where I graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics and a Bachelor of Health Sciences in Communication Sciences and Disorders. I continued my education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison receiving a Master of Science in Communication Sciences and Disorders. Post graduation I worked within community-based Early Intervention, preschool, school-age, and post-secondary services in addition to seeing a variety of clinic-based clients within upstate New York for 4 years. I moved to Massachusetts in the summer of 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and worked for a small private practice seeing early childhood through late adolescence until August 2021. In September 2021, I launched Rachel Dorsey: Autistic SLP, LLC as my full time business.
I have worked with a variety of neurodivergencies and medical conditions, helping children of all pediatric ages with their speech, language, social connections, self-advocacy, emotional and sensory regulation (and communication of regulatory needs), and feeding challenges.
All of this education and training cannot compare to the knowledge that comes from the real life experiences of living as an Autistic person my entire life and learning other neurodivergent people.
Autistic behaviors only seem weird until you understand the reasoning behind them. Unconventional behaviors like flapping, spinning, opening and closing doors, and repeating the same words over and over may appear nonsensical, but they serve the purpose of helping autistic people regulate in a neurotypically-designed world. As an Autistic person, I can call from my personal experiences to help you understand what your client, child, or loved one may be experiencing.
The majority of mainstream therapy programs aim to normalize autistic people. In the short term, it can appear to be effective. In the long term, it can have devastating consequences. Autism cannot be cured. Autism is not bad, nor is it good—it just is. It is a different neurology and a different way of being human. Your clients, your children, your loved ones—they are all human, and they all deserve to be their self-actualized, happy, and authentic selves as they experience the world in their own way.