Narissa Ventress

Narissa Ventress M.A., CCC-SLP, is a Speech-Language Pathologist, clinic owner, and educator with more than 15 years of experience working with children and families across a wide range of settings. Her career has included public and private schools, pediatric clinics, early intervention and Regional Center services, and private practice, giving her a broad view of how speech-language services look across different systems, cultures, and communities.

She is the Founder and Clinical Director of Avid Speech Therapy, a pediatric private practice in Orange County, where she has spent nearly a decade building and leading a team while remaining closely connected to clinical care. Her experience spans early intervention through high school and includes speech sound disorders, language development, autism, AAC, and Deaf and Hard of Hearing populations. She has also supervised and mentored clinicians at different stages of their careers.

Narissa is especially passionate about culturally and linguistically responsive practice, thoughtful bilingual and multilingual assessment, and helping clinicians look beyond a test score to understand the whole child. Much of her work has centered on solving the practical challenges that come with delivering high-quality care, whether that means advocating for a family, adapting an approach when something is not working, mentoring a clinician, or building systems that make services more accessible and effective.

Her teaching style reflects that same approach: practical, curious, and grounded in real clinical decision-making. She encourages students to ask better questions, challenge assumptions, consider the cultural and linguistic context surrounding every client, and become clinicians who are both evidence-based and genuinely responsive to the people they serve.