My Background
I live in Portland Oregon with my wife and two children. I was diagnosed seven years ago with an attention deficit disorder (ADHD), which likely influenced me to pick up a wide range of hobbies and interests throughout my life. Some of these include but are not limited to: juggling a variety of things, unicycling, improvisational comedy, drawing, painting, hiking, camping, growing flowers, jokes, foreign languages (Specifically German, Spanish, ASL), board games, and a general desire to play and try something different. I use the influence of these interests in my practice to make time with my clients as approachable, fun, comfortable, and dynamic as possible.
My journey into becoming a speech therapist began with my passion for learning foreign languages and understanding different cultures, highlighted by the year I spent in Germany as a teenager, living with a German family. That was when I became fascinated with the linguistics of a communicative act—figuring out what was said, how it was said, what was the intent, and, ultimately, how that communicative act can be more effective.
I have worked as a speech language pathologist for about ten years in the public school system with students pre-school age to eighth-grade. While in this setting, I have worked with a large variety of students who experienced many different kinds of language and articulation delays. This includes individuals with Autism who have used high to low tech means to communicate.
For the last seven years, I have owned and operated a private speech therapy clinic. I work with clients from preschool to retirement age. In my practice I treat a wide range of communication disorders, which include: Auditory Processing Disorders (APD), social communication difficulties, accent reduction, and school-age language and articulation delays.
My area of focus is APD. This condition can be extremely frustrating since it is not about “not knowing something” rather its more about “figuring out how to access what you know” under challenging circumstances. I view treatment to fall under three general categories:
1. Accommodations (small changes in your environment to improve comprehension. Such as, being able to see a person’s face while they talk) 2. Auditory Training ( Improving the ability to hear specific sounds in words. For example “I heard cat instead of bat”) 3. Listening Comprehension ( Improving the ability to remember multiple pieces of information and think critically about it without text or other visual cues.)
In addition to being a licensed speech-language pathologist (SLP), I have a certificate of clinical competence (CCC), as well as a certification in high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HFASD) from Portland State University. I have a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Dakota and a master’s degree from Northern Arizona University.