Meet Erin McLeod, M.Cl.Sc., Reg. CASLPO

Speech-Language Pathologist

Erin McLeod is a highly skilled SLPworking with clinical team at Hope Autism Services. With over 20 years of experience and lived experience as an autistic professional, Erin brings a unique combination of clinical expertise, cultural insight, and deep respect for neurodiversity to the families we serve. As an Ojibwe, Erin has strong ties to land, water, sky, plant, and animal life, and brings this grounded, relational perspective into their work.

Areas of Expertise

Erin provides individual assessment and treatment for infants, children, youth, and adults across a wide range of communication and related needs, including:

• Speech (verbal communication)
  Articulation, clarity, and resonance difficulties.
• Language challenges
  Delayed language development, language needs related to congenital or acquired neurological conditions (e.g., stroke), and challenges with vocabulary, sentence formation, grammar, and word endings (e.g., verb tense).
  • Services are provided in English, with the ability to integrate vocabulary from a client’s mother tongue to support language development.
• Literacy and narrative skills
  Storytelling, describing personal events, early literacy and pre-literacy skills, reading comprehension, and written expression (spelling, sentences, paragraphs, stories, articles).
• Cognitive-communication
  Attention, self-regulation, self-monitoring, organizing, planning, time estimation, reasoning, and problem-solving as they relate to communication.
• Social communication
  Asking for needs, expressing consent or protest, giving and receiving information, turn-taking, greetings, and adapting communication to home, school, community, and cross-cultural settings.
• Swallowing (follow-up support)
  Implementing and monitoring swallowing recommendations from hospital-based assessments (e.g., modified barium swallow studies) in community settings.
• Voice
  Concerns with loudness, quality, pitch, and vocal fatigue, including support for voice changes related to medical conditions (e.g., vocal nodules, muscle tension dysphonia) or gender-affirming voice work as part of identity development.
• Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)
  Supporting communication using gestures, body language, low-tech tools (e.g., picture boards), and high-tech devices.
• Extralinguistic communication and stimming
  Supporting non-traditional or emerging forms of expression, including vocal stimming and vocal expression used to support body awareness and self-regulation.

Service Locations & Modes of Delivery

Erin is committed to improving access to high-quality SLP services for families who may have limited local resources. Assessment and treatment are available:

• Northern Ontario – In Clinic
• Online/virtual, serving clients in rural and remote areas across Ontario
• On location, such as community settings, by prior arrangement

This flexible model helps families in Northern and Rural Communities receive specialized SLP support without needing to travel long distances.

Clinical Style & Approach

Our SLP approach is:

• Inclusive and supportive of gender diversity and identity
• Trauma-sensitive and resiliency-focused
• Informed by mindfulness and Indigenous wellness perspectives, recognizing the importance of health, spirituality, and community

In addition to direct therapy, we also offer communication-related counselling and consultation to organizations on inclusive, autism-friendly communication and human-rights-oriented support.

Erin’s expertise and lived experience are a significant asset to our clinical team and the families we support. Their role helps ensure that communication services at Hope Autism Services are effective, affirming, respectful, and informed by a deep understanding of neurodiversity and Indigenous perspectives.For more information or to explore services, please click on “Get Started.”