My qualifications are in Speech Pathology and Education and I am also a Certified Special Needs Quality Life Coach. I have been fortunate enough over the years to expand my skills in a range of areas including home and centre based services, parent advocacy, support and training, staff training and resource development, curriculum development and family focused research. I have also had ongoing professional development courses in a range of relevant areas including language disorders and diagnostic differentiation, Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis, intervention and educational strategies, alternative and augmentative communication strategies, sensory integration, classroom based educational assessment and intervention strategies, parental responses to child disability and parenting support, bullying and social emotional difficulties and development, and developing independence in post school settings.

I started my career here in Perth after qualifiying as a Speech Pathologist at W.A.I.T. (now Curtin University) in 1981. I further developed my skills when I worked in California for 12 years whilst also completing my Masters degree in Education and several HANEN early language program certifications. I also worked in a range of settings including founding an Early Intervention classroom-based program for children with a variety of developmental delays; as a private practitioner providing home based developmental and educational services for children with a range of developmental disabilities; and finally as the Education Director of a multidisciplinary ASD specialty school for children aged 18 months to 7 years old.

I relocated back to Perth in 2001. Since then have participated in a range of roles that have all focused on ASD and related disabilities including as a Facilitator for the national Positive Partnerships program for school aged children with ASD and their families; as a project officer for the WA Autism Register; as the lead researcher for the initial national ASD prevalence study (commissioned by the Australian Advisory Board on Autism Spectrum Disorders); and as the founding Chairperson of WAADF (Western Australian Autism Diagnosticians’ Forum) a multidisciplinary professional group dedicated to maintaining gold standard assessment and diagnostic standards in WA, which included presenting WAADF at the 2006 Autism World Congress in South Africa.