“My passion for helping children find their way in school and in the community stems back to before I can even remember. I came across speech-language pathology when my sister started receiving services in school for the ‘dreaded’ /r/ sound. After learning more about the profession and how it would allow me to help others communicate, I realized this is what I was meant to do!

While working on my master’s degree I began to fall in love with a very specific area, augmentative, and alternative communication (AAC). One of my favorite graduate projects involved working with a family to create a personalized AAC application for their nonverbal child. I am incredibly grateful for everything I learned during that experience because it sparked the driving force of my practice. Through specialized speech-generating devices based on the child, they are provided the opportunity to speak freely and independently, even when others have lost faith.

As a speech-language pathologist, I am able to provide families and the surrounding community the opportunity to learn how to best encourage and support language development, effective communication, and community engagement with all children. This is the driving force for my purpose and my passion!”