Welcome to my website! I am happy that you have found your way to my page. I see adults and adolescents for gender-affirming voice therapy in Atascadero and surrounding areas in San Luis Obispo County. I offer online services throughout California. I would like to tell you a little about myself, my clinical orientation, and my professional background. Knowing more about me will help you decide if my services will meet your needs.

Clinical Orientation.
I engage in client-centered services, 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.

Another essential piece to my clinical orientation is client education and empowerment. My goal is to make you your own clinician, so you will no longer need my services. This means that I will teach you the basics of voice production, practice different voice techniques with you, and (most importantly) teach you to analyze your own voice production. I am flexible in my approach and will meet each client's unique needs and goals for communication.

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

About Me
I am a neurotypical, able-bodied, cisgender lesbian woman. I am caucasian and benefit from white privilege. I am married to an amazing Psychologist, with whom I am in a professional partnership called SH Squared Cares. You can find her information here. We have two children, who make sure that we stay anchored in the present. In my free time (ha!), I like to read, hike, and camp. I also love listening to "The History of English" podcast, which tells you how much of a language nerd I am.

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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. After completing my degree, I started working in private practice in the fall of 2016. I became interested in providing voice therapy soon after starting work. I completed additional coursework in gender-affirming voice care and began seeing clients in 2017. 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.