Your child doesn’t have to work out friendship on their own.

Jennifer Hodges, M.S., CCC-SLP, is a licensed speech-language pathologist who was born and raised in Orange, California, and has called the San Francisco Bay Area home for the past 21 years. She founded Citrus Speech after working across hospital-based acute care, acute neurological rehabilitation, private practice, public and private schools, and home-based care.

Jennifer earned her master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology from the University of the Pacific and her bachelor’s degree in Child Development, with an emphasis in Youth and Family Services, from San Francisco State University. She holds the Certificate of Clinical Competence from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, is a PEERS® Certified Provider, and is PROMPT Bridging trained. Her clinical experience includes social communication, receptive and expressive language, speech sound disorders, executive functioning, auditory processing, and cognitive communication.

Across each of these settings, Jennifer has seen how meaningful relationships affect a person’s confidence, well-being, and sense of belonging. She loves building community wherever she goes and believes genuine social connection has only become more important as it has become increasingly easy to live without it. At a time when connection can almost feel optional, often to the detriment of our health and happiness, Jennifer believes we must be intentional about strengthening our social intelligence, investing in relationships, and rediscovering the joy of connecting with others. Her work is grounded in helping young people develop practical skills for navigating the social world while remaining fully and authentically themselves.

Jennifer is also deeply involved in San Francisco’s Italian American community, where much of her work has centered on bringing people together and preserving shared history. Outside of work, she is the mother of two daughters, both five and under, and time with her family is what fuels her. She loves walks through Golden Gate Park, summers in Italy, a themed party, and the perfect cappuccino.

Dr. Greg Lyons specializes in Naturalistic Developmental Behavior Interventions (NDBIs), function-based positive behavior supports, and socialization and inclusion interventions. He has worked in the field for over 22 years and has spent most of that time within university clinical-research centers focused on home, school, and community-based supports and programs. He is a Level 6 certified provider in Pivotal Response Treatment and, for six years, trained intensively with Drs. Robert and Lynn Koegel at the University of California–Santa Barbara.

At the Waisman Center (University of Wisconsin–Madison), Dr. Lyons trained and collaborated with Dr. Wendy Machalicek, BCBA-D (University of Oregon), publishing research on positive behavior interventions and supports. There he spent five years researching and implementing socialization interventions and school-based inclusion programs under the direction of Drs. Erik Carter (Vanderbilt) and Jennifer Asmus on a federally funded (IES) research grant. After implementing clinic-based research and services at the UCSF Center for Autism Spectrum Disorder and Neurodevelopmental Disorders for nearly six years, in 2021 Dr. Lyons founded a private practice — Lyons Developmental Behavior Consulting LLC — centered on training, parent coaching, and consultation.

Dr. Lyons also joined the team at The Helix School in January 2022 as a behavioral consultant. He often completes thorough functional behavior assessments (FBAs) for the students at Helix. These FBAs serve to identify the function(s) of a behavior, better understand the triggers and patterns (recognizing that behavior is often a form of communication or regulation), and provide a foundation for creating effective, individualized supports.

An academic-at-heart, Dr. Lyons is well-published, has developed and taught university and professional development courses, and has presented numerous conference papers and trainings locally, nationally, and internationally. His enduring interest is in intentionally individualizing evidence-based and novel support combinations, while thinking flexibly, holistically, and humanistically about supporting individuals on the spectrum across the lifespan.