Olelo Lolo
Speech and Language Therapy
Medical Cannabis Consultation
Meet Melissa Clegg M.Ed., CCC-SLP
Speech and Language Pathologist
Cannabis Consultant
What is a Speech and Language Pathologist?
Let me tell you a little about myself as a clinician:
As a Speech and Language Pathologist, I diagnose and treat a variety of cognitive, social/emotional, speech, language, voice, and swallowing disorders.
The best way to describe my profession is to speak of my experience--
I have worked in many different settings which determined what I was responsible for:
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At the hospital, I was responsible for assessing the general expressive and receptive language skills of patients post-injury and assessing the safety of patent's swallowing mechanism to prevent aspiration. I treated mostly stoke victims and traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients. In that setting, if you had a stroke or TBI, you weren't allowed to swallow anything until a Speech and Language Pathologist had done a bedside swallow assessment and cleared you to drink water or swallow a pill. I also ran the Modified Barium Swallow Study (MBSS) x-ray sessions which assessed the safety of swallowing various consistencies of food and drink. I often diagnosed and treated folks with Aphasia post-injury in this setting.
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In outpatient care at the hospital, I was responsible for diagnosing, developing treatment plans, and providing therapeutic interventions to adults with Aphasia, Dementia, Post-Concussion Syndrome, swallowing disorders, and voice disorders. This involved operating and interpreting results of oral Stroboscopy and nasal FEES camera systems to visualize the vocal cords during swallowing and voicing for diagnostics and intervention planning.
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In the public schools, I developed Individualized Education Plans for students with Speech and Language impairments who qualified for Special Education interventions at school. I provided services for a variety of students with articulation/phonological disorders, inferential language disorders, and general expressive/receptive language disorders. I developed treatment plans via IEPs for 60+ students every year. I served a variety of classrooms including: Autism level 3, Autism level 4, Severe and Profound Intellectual Disabilities, Moderate Intellectual Disabilities, Moderate and Severe Autism classrooms in California, and usually language arts, science, or social studies SPED classrooms.
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In the private practice setting, I worked mostly with children in early intervention ages (2-4) and elementary/preschool aged children. Most of these children had not spoken their first words yet or have not developed enough words by their age. I provided preschool language assessments per early intervention and insurance charging guidelines, developed treatment plans, and provided interventions with family present to train the family to encourage the child to develop communication. I also treated articulation/phonological disorders in this setting and provided online services for several clients.
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Currently, I work for myself, Olelo Lolo, so I can choose my caseload/clientele as I please and charge $60 cash per typical session without any overhead from "the man"
I prefer to work with adults managing social skills and general language skills and keiki/adults managing articulation/phonological disorders. I specialize in treating the neurodivergent (ADHD-ASD) population- I have first hand experience being diagnosed with ADHD and Autism myself which offers a special insight to managing high masking neurodivergence.
How does a Speech and Language Pathologist provide Cannabis Consultation?
Since 2023, I have been investing most of my continuing education and medical exploration into medical cannabis use treating a variety of issues associated with Autism and ADHD including insomnia, pain, inflammation, appetite issues, depression, anxiety, panic, over/under stimulation, task paralysis, etc. I am now an expert in medical use of cannabis.
I began learning about growing and using my own medicine to manage my own AuDHD needs. It is important to use the correct strain/cultivar of cannabis to best treat each need. I know the strains all have silly names, and dispensaries use terms like hempCBD, sativa, and indica to help you make a choice... but weird names and terms like "sativa or indica" are not good indicators of the effects of the cannabis you're about to use. I understand how to navigate the right strain to use for pain relief vs sedation vs uplifting/motivation and how to help others navigate testing the right strains to treat their needs.
I therefore can provide medical cannabis consultation to any permitted individual regardless of wheather they need speech and language therapy. The benefit of working with me is that I have the education, skills, and knowledge of a social/psychological medical clinician to advise my provision of medical cannabis consultation.
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The laws for medical cannabis permitting have changed in Hawai'i to reflect that individuals can obtain a permit from an appropriate medical professional for any condition which that medical professional sees fit (there is no longer a specific list of qualifying disorders/disabilities that you must be eligible for to get your permit). I am therefore now able to provide medical cannabis consultation as a part of treating any of my neurodivergent, insomniac, anxious, adult clientele.
In addition to offering general cannabis consultation, I have begun offering SLP focused cannabis consulting services to people who are looking to manage ASD-ADHD using cannabis along with other SLP therapeutic interventions. I also specialize in helping clients successfully wean off their ADHD meds if interested.
As I mentioned before, I have a lot of personal experience using cannabis medicinally to manage my ADHD and Autism and I can confidently say I am well equipped to advise others to do the same. I am currently working with referrals from Dr420 Hawai'i in Hilo (also my office location).
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Why Olelo Lolo?
I have taken a career shift to move away from working for some business or school and instead working for myself via Olelo Lolo with clientele of my choosing.
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As a SLP working for someone else, I have never made more than $63 an hour and I am absolutely certain that the clients were charged hundreds of dollars per session and hundreds more per assessment while I take home 60 bucks. Its disgusting and I want nothing more to do with it.
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I hate that healthcare and specialist services like therapy are so expensive! Hospitals and clinics are businesses first. They care about making money much more than they care about improving people's lives or caring for the lives of their employees. I don't appreciate that insurance won't cover your services if you aren't "disabled enough" to qualify for interventions; so folks who just need a little help to get along in life won't qualify for insurance to pay for their clinic visit because their needs aren't extreme enough. UGH! If you can't tell, I don't appreciate how our healthcare system operates, so I intend not to cooperate with it. People deserve to have affordable simple access to therapy. I run Olelo Lolo as a small cash/trade only business that doesn't go through insurance and charges very little for services. I'm not making out with any more than I would if I were working for "the man."
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I charge:
$60 cash/trade per appointment upfront
$20+ cash/trade additional for assessment. The charge increases if more intensive assessment is necessary.
$20 cash/trade charge for intensive research and preparation for a session (sometimes interventions can get difficult/time consuming and I may need to prepare some materials for you that I spent a lot of time preparing at home. If it ends up costing me a lot of time or any money, I may ask for an extra $20 at the next appointment to fairly cover the service)