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Valerie Gilpeer

Biography

Valerie Gilpeer

Valerie Gilpeer is an attorney who has been practicing law for 40 years. She shifted her civil law practice 20 years ago in favor of representing families of disabled children trying to obtain educational services from local school districts. She has continued to focus on disability rights law through her volunteer work with several nonprofit organizations in the Los Angeles area. Valerie and her daughter Emily, who is on the Autism spectrum, live with Tom Grodin, Valerie's husband and Emily’s dad, in Encino, California.

Valerie Gilpeer

Books by Valerie Gilpeer

I Have Been Buried Under Years of Dust: A Memoir of Autism and Hope
by Valerie Gilpeer and Emily Grodin - Memoir, Nonfiction

“I have been buried under years of dust and now I have so much to say.” These were the first words 25-year-old Emily Grodin ever wrote. Born with nonverbal autism, Emily’s only means of communicating for a quarter of a century had been only one-word responses or physical gestures. Her parents, Valerie and Tom, sought every therapy possible in the hope that Emily would one day be able to reveal herself. When this miraculous breakthrough occurred, Emily was finally able to give insight into the life, frustrations and joys of a person with autism. I HAVE BEEN BURIED UNDER YEARS OF DUST highlights key moments of Emily’s childhood that led to her communication awakening --- and how her ability rapidly accelerated after she wrote that first sentence.