Speech & Occupational Therapy for Children with Autism

Every autistic child is different, and support looks different for each family. Many of the children we work with are:

• Late to talk, nonverbal or minimally verbal, or losing words they once used
• Working to understand language or follow directions
• Finding conversation, play, or connecting with peers difficult
• Very sensitive to sounds, textures, or movement, or seeking that input
• Building fine or gross motor skills, handwriting, or coordination
• Having a hard time with mealtimes, dressing, or daily routines
• Experiencing big emotions and needing support with self-regulation

If any of this sounds familiar, our speech-language pathologists and occupational therapists can help.

Speech therapy supports autistic children through expressive and receptive language, social communication, speech clarity, and AAC where it helps:

• Expressive and receptive language, understanding others and sharing wants, needs, and ideas
• AAC (augmentative & alternative communication), picture systems and speech-generating devices for nonverbal and minimally verbal children
• Social communication, turn-taking, conversation, and reading social cues
• Speech clarity and articulation
• Play-based language building, using your child’s own interests as the way in
• Feeding therapy where an evaluation shows it is appropriate, with referral on to a specialist team for more complex feeding and swallowing presentations, including anything with a medical or airway component

Our occupational therapists help your child feel more comfortable and capable in daily life:

• Sensory processing and integration, managing responses to sound, touch, movement, and other input
• Fine and gross motor skills, including handwriting
• Self-care and daily-living skills, dressing, mealtimes, and routines
• Emotional regulation and coping strategies
• Play and social participation

Communication and daily-living challenges often overlap, which is why many autistic children make the most progress when speech and occupational therapy work together. Our SLPs and OTs collaborate on one individualized plan with clear, measurable goals we review regularly, and we coach parents so progress continues at home. We also work alongside your child’s physician, ABA providers, and teachers so everyone is moving toward the same goals.

The evaluation is a comprehensive look at your child’s strengths and challenges, followed by a personalized plan. A comprehensive speech and/or occupational therapy evaluation helps us understand your child’s strengths and challenges, and from there we build an individualized plan with meaningful, measurable goals. Sessions are play-based, strengths-focused, and paced for your child, and we keep you involved every step of the way.

We work with children from the toddler years through school age. Early support can make a meaningful difference, but it is never too late to begin. Right now we come to you in your own home anywhere in our home-visit area, or meet by telehealth anywhere in California. Our Westlake Village clinic opens on December 1, 2026.

You can use insurance through Village, pay privately with a superbill, or use Regional Center funding if your child qualifies. We provide superbills you can submit to your insurer for possible out of network reimbursement, and we will never tell you we are in network with a plan when we are not.

Whether your plan reimburses, and how much, depends on your specific benefits. Call (805) 702-3427 and we will look at it with you, and you will have a clear estimate before you begin anything.

If your child is under three, Early Start services are coordinated through your regional center rather than through a health plan. Families on the Ventura County side of our service area fall under Tri-Counties Regional Center, where we are a provider.

A lot of families reach out while they are still in the middle of the diagnostic process, or before they have started it at all. You do not have to wait for a diagnosis to begin speech or occupational therapy. If your child is struggling with communication, sensory regulation, motor skills or daily routines right now, those are the things therapy addresses, and a diagnosis does not change what we would work on this month.

If you do want to pursue an evaluation, there are three separate paths and they do not depend on each other. You can start any of them while therapy is already underway.

If your child is under three. California’s Early Start program is run through regional centers. Families on the Ventura County side of our area are served by Tri-Counties Regional Center, which covers San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties. If you live on the Los Angeles County side, tell us your address and we will help you confirm which regional center serves you, since the boundaries in this area do not follow the city lines you would expect.

If your child is three or older. Your local school district is responsible for assessing children who may need special education support, including children who are not yet enrolled. You start by requesting an assessment in writing. Put the request in writing, date it, and keep a copy. Which district you contact depends on where in Westlake Village you live, because the city is split: the Los Angeles County portion of Westlake Village is served by Las Virgenes Unified, while the Ventura County portion falls under Conejo Valley Unified. If you are not sure which side you are on, we can help you figure it out.

If you are seeking a medical diagnosis. An autism diagnosis typically comes from a developmental pediatrician, a psychologist, or a multidisciplinary diagnostic team, usually by referral from your pediatrician. This path tends to carry the longest wait, which is exactly why we do not ask families to hold off on therapy until it is finished.

We work alongside ABA, school and the rest of your child's team, because most autistic children we see have more than one provider. There may be an ABA team, an IEP or an IFSP, a developmental pediatrician, and sometimes a physical therapist. We are not trying to replace any of that.

Therapy Clubhouse provides speech-language pathology and occupational therapy. We do not provide ABA. When your child has an ABA team, we would rather coordinate with them than work in parallel and hope the goals line up. The same is true for school services: what your child gets at school and what your child gets here should be reinforcing each other, not repeating each other.

Practically, that means we will ask you for the reports you already have, we will ask who else is on the team, and with your permission we will talk to them. It also means we will tell you when we do not think a service is necessary. If your child is doing well and does not need to keep coming, that is a good outcome and we will say so.

Sessions are play-based, strengths-focused, and paced for your child. That is not a slogan, it is a description of the method. We start from what your child already loves, because that is where attention and motivation already live, and we build the skill inside that activity rather than pulling your child away from it to drill something at a table.

For occupational therapy, that might look like an obstacle course that is quietly doing the work of building core strength, motor planning and frustration tolerance. For speech, it might look like play your child chose, with the clinician shaping how requests, comments and back-and-forth exchanges show up inside it.

One thing worth saying plainly, because parents ask about it constantly: communication is not the same thing as speech. If your child is not yet talking, or talks in some settings and not others, we may use pictures, signs, a device, or a combination. Parents sometimes worry that using one of these tools will make a child less likely to talk. According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s practice portal on augmentative and alternative communication, the research does not support that worry. ASHA states that the use of AAC does not affect motivation to use natural speech and can in fact help improve natural speech when therapy addresses natural speech development and AAC use at the same time, citing Millar, Light and Schlosser (2006), Sedey, Rosin and Miller (1991), and Kasari and colleagues (2014). The goal is that your child has a way to be understood now, while we keep working on speech.

You are welcome in sessions. We would rather you see what we are doing and be able to repeat a piece of it on a Tuesday afternoon than have therapy be a closed door your child walks through once a week.

Therapy Clubhouse is a small practice, and that is deliberate. Your child is not passed between rotating staff.

Speech-language therapy is provided by Nita Anavim, M.S., CCC-SLP. She holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in Communicative Disorders and Sciences from California State University, Northridge, and she holds the Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology, the national certification issued by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

Occupational therapy is provided by Rachel Yashouafar, MA, OTR/L, a registered and licensed occupational therapist with pediatric training.

Because both disciplines are in one practice, the two of them can actually talk about your child. When a communication goal and a regulation goal are tangled together, which with autistic children they very often are, that conversation is the difference between two sets of notes and one plan.

Not sure where to begin? Take our free 2-minute milestone check, or reach out to our team to schedule a consultation. We would love to support your child and family.