Katie Schuelke, MS CCC-SLP, EMT-B, is the founder of Amber Seal Adventures LLC and brings over a decade of experience in disability services since beginning her work in 2013 in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Her background includes clinical speech-language pathology, caregiving, community-based adaptive recreation, outdoor inclusion work, and emergency response for autistic elopement search and rescue missions. Her work has primarily focused on supporting individuals with significant disabilities, especially autistic and non-speaking clients who are complex communicators, across a wide range of environments and support needs. She has a passion for helping to determine the communicative “why” behind someone’s behaviors and increasing meaningful opportunities for individuals who are often left behind by wider inclusion efforts. 

She began working in specialized recreation as a teenager within one of the country’s largest adaptive recreation programs, supporting individuals in activities such as arts, sports, aquatics, shopping, day excursions, and community-based engagement. She later advanced into program lead roles and continued expanding her experience as a caregiver and respite provider for multiple families, supporting community participation and daily life skill development both in and out of the home. She also developed experience in inclusion-based outdoor programming near Rocky Mountain National Park, where she supported campers with complex needs in adaptive hiking, archery, and ranger-led service projects.

After completing her Master’s Degree in Speech-Language Pathology in 2020, Katie worked as an outpatient Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) Specialist where she further refined her focus on multimodal communication, incorporating sensory needs, and increasing functional participation for individuals with complex communication, sensory, behavioral, and general support needs. She also expanded into adaptive aquatics, supporting both water safety and lifelong access to swimming as a meaningful activity.

In her free time, Katie has been an active volunteer with King County Explorer Search and Rescue since 2021, where she now serves as a Team Leader and EMT. Starting in 2023, she developed training to better equip her teammates in understanding the fundamentals of autism and support their response in the field to elopement missions, particularly focusing on subjects who have limited or no verbal communication and increased sensory needs. This training has since expanded to over 130 first responders across 6 agencies, with ongoing development across both the Western Washington region and the national SAR community. This ongoing work provides a unique perspective bridging caregiver needs and emergency response systems, particularly in high-stress, real-world scenarios.

These experiences led her to create Amber Seal Adventures to bridge the gap between clinical therapy and adaptive recreation. While drawing on her extensive clinical, recreational, outdoor, and search and rescue experience, ASA does not provide speech therapy services. Instead, it focuses on building capacity for safe, meaningful participation by supporting clients and caregivers in developing confidence, routines, and access to real-world community experiences.