Therapeutic Services
My Clinical Process
Therapeutic Approach
The overarching theme of my clinical approach echoes my clinical philosophy, helping autistic kids with a Level 1, 2, and 3 diagnosis access social connectedness. The common starting point of my work is building social confidence through strong rapport.
Exact clinical approach and goals are variable. Some common features include:
Guidance towards prosocial self-expression and outlets
Modeling helpful language and scripts in a range of social situations
Offering language that resonates with their experience (or doesn’t!) to help understand and express self.
Working through and educating on the impact of brain-body disconnect, including tone modulation, incorrect or inauthentic speech-language motor patterns, and resulting social anxiety/trauma.
Building and supporting multimodal communication
Monitoring feeding variability as it pertains to overall regulation and work with parents and schools to support socioemotional and sensory impacts of limited eating
Parental/Caregiver Involvement
A substantial part of my work is working alongside families. Parents and caregivers are often distressed and perplexed by alarming and escalating social behaviors, complete shutting down, and socioemotional instability of their autistic kids. With empathy for both the child and caregivers, I analyze and problem-solve barriers to success and promote generalization. To do this work, parent consultations several times a semester are a vital part of my care. When possible, I visit home environments, schools, after-school programs, and/or extracurricular activity centers.
