Our Director

Michelle McFarlin, MS, CCC-SLP

Director, Speech-Language Pathologist

Michelle McFarlin, MS, CCC-SLP, holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Southern Methodist University; and a Masters of Science in Communication Disorders from the University of Texas at Dallas. Mrs. McFarlin is a certified, clinical speech-language pathologist who specializes in early childhood speech-language, social communication disorders, and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). From graduate studies to present, Mrs. McFarlin has over 20 years of experience in research and clinical service to young children with speech-language and social communication challenges and their families.

Michelle McFarlin lives with her husband and two sons in the Lakewood area of Dallas, Texas.

Background and Work History

  • Served as a faculty associate at the UTD-Callier Center for Communication Disorders: provided evaluations and individual speech-language intervention for children with a variety of communication disorders.
  • Co-developed the Callier Individualized Descriptive Supplement (CIDS), a qualitative assessment instrument for young children with ASD.
  • Served as Coordinator and Clinical Supervisor of the Early CLASS (Communication, Language, and Social Skills), a preschool program that was designed to facilitate social communication and social skills of young children with social communication challenges, and/or autism spectrum disorder.
  • Co-wrote the language and social skills curriculum for the Early CLASS with Dr. Pamela Rollins.
  • Presented at numerous professional seminars, including the American Speech-Language Hearing Association Convention and the Texas Speech-Language and Hearing Association Convention.
  • Co-authored the curriculum portion of Dr. Rollins' text, Facilitating Early Communication, Language, and Social Skills: From Theory to Practice, published by Autism and Asperger's Press in June, 2014.
  • Served as consultant to multiple state legislatures for best practices on social skills programming for school aged children.
  • One of three autism experts contracted by RoboKind as a consultant and curriculum developer for Robots4Autism, a program designed to support social skills development in school-aged children with ASD. In her consulting work for RoboKind, Michelle also co-produced and co-directed video models for the Robots4Autism curriculum, co-authored the Robots4Autism Facilitator's Manual, and co-created a comprehensive set of picture symbols utilized within the Robots4Autism program.