I was born in a small town in the state of Kerala in India. I belong to a middle-class family, consisting of my parents and my two younger sisters. My sister had hearing loss at birth, even though it took a long time to be diagnosed. Growing up I have seen my parents worry about the future of my sister. She got diagnosed and started wearing a hearing aid when she was 10 years old. Till then, she used to lip read people. She attended a regular general education class and struggled to be on par with other peers of her age. Slowly I remember she started developing tantrums. My parents never received any professional help to deal with my sister’s behavior or help her with her communication. We as a family always worried about her future. She completed her Bachelors in nursing and currently she is married and well-settled and has three beautiful children of her own.

I could completely relate to the families of individuals with disabilities, when I started my Bachelors in Speech and Hearing. The years I spent to become a Speech Pathologist, I got transformed into a human being who started having empathy for the families and the individuals with disabilities. My experience in my beginning years of undergraduate school helped me build good friendship that lasted for a lifetime. After completing my Bachelors and Masters in Speech pathology and Audiology I got an opportunity to work as a Speech Pathologist in New York. I provided services for children 0-3 years of age. During this time, I got the opportunity to work closely with parents and I was able to see the effectiveness of Speech Therapy in children where the parents were active participants.

During this time, I got married and after a year I had my first child. I got offered a job in California, and as a family we made the decision of moving to California. I have been in California since 2007 and since then I have been working in the school setup and also had the opportunity to conduct Bedside swallow assessment and therapy. I realized my passion is in working with the children and specifically with the children diagnosed with Autism who are unable to communicate their needs verbally. I got the opportunity to work with different school districts as I was working for an agency. During this time I got introduced to AAC. I got the opportunity of working with children who cannot verbally communicate their needs and who relied on using augmentative means of communication. I was intrigued by the usage of these devices and how it transformed the lives of my students. I would like to share the experience of one of my students, he was quadriplegic, he was not able to move his hands and legs . He used his eye gaze to construct sentences on the Speech generative device to communicate his needs. This was my first exposure with AAC. That experience gave me goosebumps and I made up my mind to explore the field of AAC. I was lucky to get good mentoring from my co-SLP colleagues and got an AT certification . I have been doing AAC evaluation and providing services for qualifying students for a period of 10 years.

I am grateful to the Supreme Power that guides me for showing me this career, and I am grateful for a supporting family, my parents and my Uncle who paved the path for me to get the education, my husband who is my pillar of support and who encourages me to follow my dream and my children whose smiling faces keeps me going.