Adaptive Tennis Spotlight: Growing the Game with Love Serving Autism

Around this time, her mother happened to read an article about speech language pathology. She thought the field might be a good fit for her daughter, who had majored in English and linguistics in college. Pugliese-LaCroix looked into it and ended up enrolling in a graduate program at nearby Florida Atlantic University. Quickly, she says, she found her calling.

“I realized how much I enjoyed helping others and not being so focused on myself,” she explains. “Growing up in tennis, it was all about my training and performance and results, and it was kind of nice to give back. I enjoyed it.”

In 2011, about ten years removed from her athletic career, Pugliese-LaCroix learned about the ACEing Autism organization, which, as its name indicates, helps bring tennis to kids with autism. It seemed like a perfect melding of two disciplines to which she had dedicated her life, and she offered to help expand the California-based operation’s programming to her home state of Florida. After serving as ACEing’s site director for six years, she endeavored to form a non-profit of her own so that she could better infuse the programming with her own approaches and ideas as a professional in the field.

“I just felt in my heart that there are not enough organizations to serve this population,” Pugliese-LaCroix says. “I think the statistics are that 1 in 36 children now are diagnosed by the age of eight in the United States. So I hoped it would be perceived as, ‘Okay, this is another program to help others.’”

Love Serving Autism’s astronomical growth in Florida more than underscores that point. The non-profit originated as one program at a charter school in 2017; Pugliese-LaCroix taught every class herself. Today it offers programming at 28 locations across the state and serves around 300 students. In addition to helping teach the fundamentals of the game, the organization hires speech, occupational, physical and behavioral therapists as independent contractors through grants to help participants improve their communication, coordination, motor and life skills.

Amid the expansion, Pugliese-LaCroix has begun taking the show on the road, helping other tennis providers around the country develop their own adaptive operations, including in New York and New Jersey. She has helped establish programming in East Brunswick, N.J., Summit, N.J., West Orange, N.J. and in Middle Village, Queens. Caitlin Kehoe, the recreation supervisor for the East Brunswick Department of Recreation, Parks and Community Services, leaned on Pugliese-LaCroix as she worked to get one such offering off the ground.

In addition to her efforts to bolster adaptive programming in the area, Pugliese-LaCroix has also led in-person training sessions for many other tennis professionals in the USTA Eastern section, including in Guilderland, N.Y. and Watertown, N.Y., as well as with teachers in the New York City public schools. Through these efforts, she hopes to empower more people in the tennis world to serve a woefully underserved group.

“Whether it’s someone with the YMCA or a tennis director or a P.E. teacher, it’s about helping them realize that they are in fact capable of developing this programming,” she says. “It's not like you have to be a certified tennis professional. There are a lot of tools and resources available to create a successful experience for participants. I think that providers can be intimidated by the process. They don't think that they're adequate or equipped to do this. And after a training, many realize, ‘Okay, I think I could do this.’ So it’s very exciting to see. The hope is that maybe a handful of the people who attend these workshops will initiate something at some point in their career in adaptive tennis.”