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About Me.

Welcome to my website!  I am happy that you have found your way to my page.  While my training is primarily in pediatric speech-language pathologist, I am currently not seeing pediatric clients.  For adults and adolescents, I provide gender affirming voice therapy to clients in Atascadero and surrounding areas in San Luis Obispo County.  I would like to tell you a little about my clinical orientation and my professional background.  Knowing more about me will help you decide if my services will meet your speech and language needs.

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Clinical Orientation.

I engage in client-centered speech therapy, and I practice evidence-based therapy techniques. I seek to provide non-ableist, culturally sensitive, neurodiversity affirming services to people across the gender and neurodevelopment spectrum. When working with children, I mostly use play-based therapy, which allows the child to feel comfortable and at ease during sessions. When first working with me, many children think they are just spending time playing, rather than engaging in "work."

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Another essential piece to my clinical orientation is parent education and empowerment.  You know your child best, and you are the expert on your child!  Therefore, I encourage parents to sit in on therapy sessions and to learn therapy techniques that are easily applied in your everyday interactions with your child.  Speech therapy does not have to feel like work!  By learning the techniques, parents can feel confident to actively take part in their child's speech-language development.  I will often send home short games/activities that can be used to extend therapy exercises into the home and community environment. Learning language is a lengthy process, and the more that therapy techniques are extended throughout the child's day, the more effective therapy will be.

 

When working with adults, I provide individualized treatment approaches.  I am flexible in my approach and will meet each client's unique needs and goals for communication.

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No matter who my client is and no matter how therapy sessions are conducted, I use only evidence-based practices.  I stay current on research in my field by reading publications, attending conferences, and participating in specialized workshops and trainings. I am always open to learning new techniques and theories and am happy to discuss recent research with you.

What I Do.

Most people are not quite sure what a Speech-Language Pathologist does, so here is a brief description of the services I offer.  Please note that I do not provide services in the area of dysphagia (swallowing) or cognitive therapy, but I will be happy to refer you to another clinic if you need help in this area.

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Fluency:  stuttering and cluttering

Speech Production:  articulation of speech sounds (i.e., making the speech sounds accurately) and intelligibility (how well a child is understood by others)

Language Comprehension:  a child's understanding of what is said to them

Language Production:  production of grammatically accurate language, use of vocabulary

Language Pragmatics: language use and social aspects of communication

Reading and Writing:  understanding and production of written language; treatment for dyslexia, reading disorders, spelling

Voice: pitch and volume of voice, vocal quality (e.g., roughness in the voice), gender affirming voice therapy

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I provide services in person and online via a HIPAA-compliant tele-therapy platform.

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Education.

I completed my PhD at the University of Kansas in 2017.  My dissertation topic was the assessment of language impairment in bilingual children.  During my program, my coursework included a broad scope of topics in Speech Pathology.  I completed additional coursework in gender affirming voice care, pediatric speech pathology, reading disorders, and bilingual language development.  Prior to starting my degree in Speech-Language Pathology, I completed a Master's Degree in English with an emphasis on Teaching English to Students of Other Languages.  I taught English as a Second Language (ESL) for ten years at the high school and college/university level.

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