Mariella Nolfo is a Speech Language Pathologist in Central Oregon who served children K-12 in Crook County School District for 3 years, where she started a Social Cognition program for high school students in Special Education with Autism. Prior to her graduate education, Mariella spent nearly a decade working with children and adults with autism as a private caregiver and member of behavioral support teams for numerous schools and families in and around the Portland, OR metro area. Mariella has also been heavily involved in research in Communication Disorders. She was co-lead on a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study on auditory processing in individuals with Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD) at OHSU from 2015-2017 and also developed a pilot study & professional resource library with Portland State University’s Autism & Social Communication Lab on a sibling-mediated, AAC-based intervention for nonverbal children with ASD.
In addition to her skills as a clinician, Mariella is also a professional musician; she has been playing drums for over 23 years and received her Bachelor’s degree from Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. She became interested in Speech Pathology and autism after encountering a number of non-verbal children with ASD whom were able to use spoken language in musical settings.
In her free time, Mariella continues to play and record music and loves exploring beautiful Central Oregon with her husband Colin and 3 mini dachshunds, Franky, Lady & Apollo.