Tracy Shepherd

Tracy Shepherd, M.A., SLP – CCC, reg CASLPO

Tracy Shepherd is a speech language pathologist who has a longstanding passion for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC). As a student she worked part time doing in-home support for a family who had 2 young girls who used AAC (a Touch Talk and a Light Talker). This sparked her interest and love of AAC that enables individuals the ability to communicate and connect with others. She has been practicing clinically in AAC since 1991.

Tracy works in the Augmentative Communication Service at Thames Valley Children’s Centre in London, Ontario, Canada and as a Clinical Education Coordinator at the Centralized Equipment Pool (operated by Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital) in Toronto.

In addition, Tracy is a member of the organizational committee for the Breaking the ICE conference (a consumer-focused conference for people who use AAC). In 2018 she traveled to Ethiopia to teach AAC at Addis Ababa University to the inaugural class of Speech Therapists in the country.

Her research interests span many areas including reliability of SGDs, abandonment of technology, outcome measurement as well as other areas of clinical interest (teamwork, listening and family impact).

Tracy was President of the Canadian Chapter of ISAAC (2009 to 2013), and was previously on the ISAAC Canada Execution Board (2006 to 2009). She has been a member of ISAAC in good standing since 1990.

Tracy has held the position of VP without portfolio for the ISAAC International Executive Board from 2014 – 2018, her major responsibility being supporting conferences. Tracy co-chaired the 17th Biennial conference in Toronto, Canada in 2016 “Bringing us Together”. Tracy became President of ISAAC during the Covid-19 Pandemic, a particularly difficult time in which we saw just how essential communication is across the world.