Hi, I'm Hannah.
I help your kid
be heard.
I'm a Gold Coast speech pathologist working with autistic and neurodivergent communicators of every age. My practice is small on purpose — so every family gets the time and care they deserve.
The short version.
I started Speech Sprout because the speech therapy I trained in wasn't built for the autistic kids I was meeting. The frameworks were deficit-led. The goals were about masking, not thriving. The language used about kids never matched the language those kids used about themselves.
So I went deeper — postgrad studies in autism, then masters-level training in speech pathology — and built a practice around how neurodivergent people actually communicate. Identity-first. Strengths-based. Family-centred. Real.
Echolalia is communication. Full stop.
Stims are nervous-system regulation, not behaviour to extinguish.
AAC is not a last resort — it's a first language for the people who need it.
The goal isn't a kid who looks neurotypical. It's a kid who likes themselves.
Identity-affirming
isn't a buzzword here.
It's the whole point. Every session, every report, every email. We don't tone-police. We don't pathologise stims. We don't pressure speech for kids who use AAC. We work with the communicator in front of us — the actual one, not the imagined neurotypical version.
If you've had bad experiences with speech therapy before, I'm genuinely sorry. A lot of clinicians are still catching up. Speech Sprout is built for what comes next.