Speaking & workshops
Full-day conferences, half-day workshops, keynotes and staff training — on autism, development, and what changes when you stop managing behaviour and start building thinking.
Lisa doesn't deliver a talk about autism. She runs a room full of parents and professionals through the thinking that changes how they show up on Monday morning.
Twenty years of clinical practice, a certification pathway she now directs for the whole of Canada, and — the part audiences remember — a parent's own experience of raising two children with special needs. That combination is why organizers book her: she can hold the research credibility a professional audience demands and the lived honesty a parent audience needs, in the same room, in the same hour.
Sessions run in person, by livestream, or both at once. Lisa has designed and led full-day hybrid conferences where the room and the online audience follow the same rhythm — breaks included — and she is comfortable co-presenting, moderating, or taking the whole day herself.
Growth happens not through perfection, but through presence. Not through instruction, but through invitation. Not through control, but through connection.
What Lisa is booked to deliver
Each runs as a 60–90 minute session, or expands into a half or full day. Content is tuned to the audience in front of it — parents, clinicians, educators, or a mixed room.
Beyond Behaviour
Building thinking, connection and self-awareness in autism. The keynote — and the one that reframes the room. Replaces “how do I stop this behaviour” with a more useful question about what is happening underneath it.
The Parent Advantage
What RDI® is, why parents are the most powerful variable in a child's development, and what changes when a family is given a role rather than a schedule.
Raising a Growth-Seeking Child
Dare to parent differently. On the “one step ahead” principle, guiding without taking over, and why pauses, uncertainty and recovery have to stay in the learning process.
Communication That Builds Thinking
Practical, immediately usable. How adults unintentionally do the child's cognitive work for them — and what to say instead.
Turning Everyday Life Into Learning
Why ordinary moments contain real developmental ingredients, and how to spot and use them without adding another programme to a family's week.
Mindful Communication
The art of slowing down, noticing more, and using language in a way that nurtures emotional connection and confidence. Delivered to the therapy team at the Curaçao Dolphin Therapy & Research Center, and adaptable to any clinical team.
The Science Behind Meaningful Growth
For professional audiences: static versus dynamic abilities, cognitive flexibility, working memory, self-regulation, perspective-taking and reflection — and what the developmental literature actually supports.
Where Lisa has presented
Beyond Behaviour Conference — Okanagan College
Full-day hybrid conference, designed and co-led. Six sessions from keynote to practical workshop, delivered to an in-person room and a livestream audience simultaneously, with a printed attendee guide and take-home materials.
Curaçao Dolphin Therapy & Research Center — Mindful Communication
A workshop for the CDTC therapy team on 4 December 2025: declarative language, moving from testing to sharing, building a child’s inner voice, perspective taking, and the dolphins’ own role as co-regulators. CDTC runs immersive two-week programmes in a natural ocean lagoon for children with autism, developmental differences, motor challenges and trauma. Read Lisa’s account →
Supporting Autistic Well-Being
An international invitation to speak on well-being for autistic people, and what a developmental approach contributes to it.
How to Develop Growth-Seeking Individuals
Delivered in a university setting — on why the willingness to seek challenge, rather than avoid it, is the shift that matters most.
Why Co-Regulation
On co-regulation as the foundation everything else is built on, and what it asks of the adult in the room.
What is RDI®?
An introduction to Relationship Development Intervention for a national autism audience.
Professional development days
Sessions for teaching and support staff across a range of schools — practical, classroom-facing, and built for the people who see the child all day.
RDI® Professional Training cohorts
Twelve-week live training programmes delivered several times a year to professional cohorts across Canada — the sustained teaching practice behind the conference work.
All About Autism (Ep. 028) & Compassionate Solutions (Ep. 140)
Long-form conversations on RDI, parent empowerment and the developmental approach to autism.
How to book her.
Tell us the audience, the room and the time you have. Lisa will come back with a session shape rather than a menu — including whether a shorter, sharper format would serve you better than the one you asked for.
- Keynote — 45–90 minutes, conference or association event
- Half-day workshop — two or three linked sessions with discussion
- Full-day conference — designed end to end, solo or co-presented
- Hybrid — in-room and livestream running as one event
- Staff & clinician training — for schools, clinics and agencies
- Parent evening — accessible, practical, for a family audience
Speaker kit
Biography, headshot, session descriptions and learning outcomes, technical requirements, and travel notes — everything your programme committee needs in one file.
Request the kit →Have a date in mind?
Lisa is currently taking enquiries for conferences, association events and staff training. Travel from Toronto, Canada-wide and international.