2025 HEALTH CARE PROVIDER OF THE YEAR NOMINEE

Deidre Sperry

Nominated For: HEALTH CARE PROVIDER OF THE YEAR

Deidre Sperry is a Speech-Language Pathologist with over 30 years of clinical experience, with each of those years devoted to supporting people living with Acquired Brain Injury. Whether it is in her clinical, educational or volunteer work, Dee’s passion for using a person-centered, real-world approach to rehabilitation has defined all her work. It is with this lens that she has helped many people with ABI rebuild identity and purpose. Through supporting their cognitive-communication skills in everyday life, Dee has helped people to once again live meaningful lives after ABI.

Dee works in private practice but also finds ways to do more. She collaborates across disciplines to push boundaries to find ways to better support those with ABI and has shared that work locally, nationally and internationally. Her passion for keeping assessments, treatments and research meaningful and practical, yet based strongly on rehabilitation evidence, has led her to broadening her role to professional education and knowledge translation. She is a long-time instructor for OBIA’s Level 1 Course inspiring people to remember that “the role is the goal”. More recently, Dee earned a position of Part Time Assistant Clinical Instructor in the School of Rehabilitation Sciences at McMaster University. Here, she teaches those new to the field of Speech Pathology to blend science and clinical experience in a way that keeps the person front and centre of everything.

Dee’s clients, colleagues, and students know her as a thoughtful, fun loving, and creative problem-solver who meets people where they are and then helps them move forward with purpose. Her efforts, whether in Hamilton or abroad are rooted in a steady commitment to “make things just a little bit better every day” for the people she serves.