My Story

I was born and raised in Gainesville, Florida and did my undergraduate work at University of Florida. Observing speech-language sessions as an undergraduate hit hard. I sensed the autistic kids wanted the same thing I’ve wanted throughout my childhood but had always seemed out of grasp—a deep sense of social connectedness and belonging.

I graduated with my SLP degree in 2016 at University of Wisconsin-Madison—way before I or most SLPs knew what “neurodiversity” even was. Upon moving to upstate NY and working in as an itinerant SLP, it was jarring to learn common approaches to autism involved physically handling clients unnecessarily or pushing unproductive or counterproductive goals. Guided by my own set of values and intuitive sense of clinical reasoning for why autistic people do the things they do, I slowly figured out kind ways to engage in therapeutic practice.

I was diagnosed autistic in February of 2020 and hit the ground running. I connected with several other recently diagnosed autistic speech-language pathologists, friends and colleagues Hillary Crow, MS, CCC-SLP and Caroline Gaddy, MS, CCC-SLP. We published an article in the Sept 2020 ASHA Leader “Putting Autistic Voices at the Forefront of Care” calling for the necessity of speech-language care for autistic clients informed by the Autistic community and “outed” ourselves as autistic SLPs when the concept was nearly unheard of.

For several years I maintained a part-time client caseload while doing a combination of advocacy work, professional speaking events, and continuing education creation on neuro-affirming care. However, I missed being a fulltime SLP and the fulfillment of seeing clients grow. I opened up my physical clinic space in September 2024 to be a safe and inviting space for autistic clients to be themselves.

This time working in Massachusetts, I was struck by autistic kids’ negative self-image and poor social confidence. Everywhere I looked reinforced societal discrimination towards autism. It became clear the value of my work is not just in my training and experience as an SLP—it is just as important for me to be a positive autistic role model who offers a counter-narrative status quo.