Our Story

It all started when…

Autumn and Deanne met while studying at the Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis in Nice, France. Friends for nearly 20 years, they both pursued careers in education - Autumn as an AMI-trained Montessori primary guide and Deanne as a bilingual speech-language pathologist. In their respective fields, they both encountered the need for supports tailored to the Montessori environment for students with learning and behavior challenges.

As a Montessori teacher, Autumn found that the special education professionals she encountered were often unaware of Montessori pedagogy, making it extremely difficult to implement their strategies in her classroom while staying true to Montessori philosophy. Over the years, while working in both public and private Montessori schools, she saw this was a common problem for Montessori teachers and schools, as they worked with special education professionals and service providers who were unable to integrate their expertise in meaningful ways into the Montessori model.

Deanne provided speech-language pathology services in a Montessori school, and, at the outset, was unfamiliar with the philosophy and methodology. She did not understand the prepared environment, the purpose of the materials, nor how to schedule inclusion or pull-out sessions without disrupting the work cycle. An understanding of Montessori principles would also have enabled her to implement evidence-based interventions while staying true to Montessori philosophy.

Autumn and Deanne felt that their expertise dovetailed perfectly to create a space for collaboration - a space for empowering Montessorians and supporting their work with diverse populations, as well as a space for enabling specialists to connect, grow, and integrate into Montessori classrooms.