Hannah Chamberlain,
Speech Pathologist.
Masters-qualified · Speech Pathology Australia member · NDIS-registered. Founder of Speech Sprout, working with autistic and neurodivergent communicators of every age.
Background.
Hannah is a Masters-qualified speech pathologist and the founder of Speech Sprout, a neurodiversity-affirming practice based at Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast. She works with autistic and neurodivergent communicators of every age — from 18-month-old gestalt language processors through to late-diagnosed adults — both in-clinic and via telehealth across Australia.
She started Speech Sprout after years of working in clinics where the dominant model was still deficit-led: goals built around masking neurodivergent traits, behaviour-management frameworks borrowed from ABA, and reports that pathologised the kids they were meant to help. Hannah's clinical model is the opposite — identity-first, AAC-positive, regulation-aware, and built on the lived expertise of the autistic community.
Clinical interests
- Gestalt language processing — Stages 1–6 across toddlers through adults
- AAC — robust language-based systems, modelling-led implementation, NDIS funding pathways
- Late-identified autism — kids, teens and adults processing recent identification
- Masking and burnout — particularly in school-age kids, teens and adult women
- School advocacy — communication passports, accommodation letters, IEP/ILP meeting attendance
- Stuttering-affirming work — for kids, teens and adults who stutter and do not want to be 'fixed'
Training and ongoing learning
Hannah's clinical practice is informed by ongoing CPD in neurodiversity-affirming frameworks — including the Bottom-Up approach to AAC, Natural Language Acquisition (Marge Blanc / Communication Development Center) for gestalt language processors, and the body of work coming out of the autistic SLP community internationally.
She regularly cites and recommends practitioners and writers including Meaningful Speech, Therapist Neurodiversity Collective, Reframing Autism (AU), and the Australian-based AAC research coming out of universities like USQ and CQU. Practitioners who don't want to participate in this learning are increasingly the exception in the field, not the rule — but the gap between "neurodiversity-affirming on paper" and actually changing practice is still wide. Hannah's work sits inside the second group.
How Hannah works
A small, deliberately bounded caseload. Most clients are seen weekly or fortnightly for an open-ended block — there's no enrolled "program" with an end date. Sessions are 45 minutes. Reports are plain-language and strengths-based. Families and adult clients see their own notes and reports before they go anywhere.
Hannah does not run discrete trial blocks, eye-contact training, masking-style social skills, or any program built around extinguishing stims or scripts. The reasons are covered in detail on the approach page.
Where Hannah works
- In-clinic at Burleigh Heads, Gold Coast — a small, quiet, sensory-considered space
- In-home visits for Gold Coast families where the home environment is the right setting
- Telehealth Australia-wide via Zoom — covers Brisbane families, regional Queensland, and the rest of Australia
Languages and communication
Hannah works in English. She is comfortable working with clients who use AAC as their primary mode of communication, who script extensively, who are non-speaking, who are selectively speaking, or who communicate in any combination of speech, gestures, sign, AAC, and writing. Camera-on is never required in telehealth.
Outside the clinic
Hannah lives on the Gold Coast and is a parent herself. She's part of the broader neurodiversity-affirming SLP community in Australia and is happy to refer to other identity-affirming clinicians around the country when Speech Sprout isn't the right fit.