Today Im sitting down with Teresa Girolamo, Ph.D., she is an autistic language in autism researcher and assistant professor in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at San Diego State University. As director of the Brain, Environment, and Language Lab, she works with racially and ethnically minoritized autistic individuals with language impairment. This population is underserved in research, hindering our ability to develop supports to meet their needs. Current projects include how social determinants of health plus language ability shape life outcomes and how to better understand strengths in language ability in this population. The long-term goal of this work is to translate this knowledge into community-based supports for individuals to meet their self-identified goals.