Relocated to Beaufort, South Carolina in 2004, Donna Ridley has over 35 years of experience as a speech-language pathologist, with a variety of ages, disorders, and treatment approaches. She specializes in pediatric speech production disorders: apraxia/dyspraxia, dysarthria, "straight articulation", or irregular breakdown of speech intelligibility (also called "slurred speech") Other speech-language pathologists refer clients to her when they feel her specialized expertise is needed.

At the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Donna earned an undergraduate degree in English and education, and a Master of Education in speech-language pathology. Early professional experiences were in Charleston, South Carolina, and Prince George's County, Maryland. Subsequently, she and her partner Michelle Fill, formed Ridley & Fill, Speech & Language Associates (Bethesda, Maryland) , which was known for innovative therapy and the highest quality of services. Among these innovations was Ridley & Fill's "Language Camp", the first such program in the metropolitan Washington area, and which was later widely copied.

When her clients weren't helped by the usual methods, Donna came up with new techniques—among them : ultrasound biofeedback to treat resistant speech production errors; correction of a lateral lisp /s/ distortion by means of an invented foreign language ; correction of a lateral lisp by changing it to a frontal lisp; two-week daily intensive therapy; the use of magic tricks and broken toys for teaching interrogative sentence formation to language-impaired children.

A love of children, and of words and communication, is at the foundation of her work. She feels she has particular talents in getting kids to acknowledge their errors, to work hard within sessions, and to believe they can correct their problems! She has technical skills with muscle retraining, oral structure, and the phonology (sound system) of the English language. She also uses her experiences from Irish stepdancing to facilitate the muscle memory needed to change children's speech errors.

In addition to hands-on work with kids, Donna presents workshops to other speech-language pathologists to help them learn how to apply some of her therapeutic techniques.